Single dancers followed; then "ladyes and gentiles" in pairs, taking fantastic steps which would shame a modern dancing-master without once awakening a blush in a maiden's cheek.
The dancing was refined, even dainty, to-night, the favorite achievement of the women being the mincing step taken so rapidly as to simulate suspension of effort, which set the dancers spinning like so many tops, although there was much languid posing, with exchange of salutations and curtsying galore.
Yet not a twirl of fan or dainty lift of flounce—to grace a figure or display a dexterous foot—but expressed a primitive idea of high etiquette.
The "fragments" left over from the banquet of the upper porch—many of them great unbroken dishes, meats, game, and sweets—provided a great banquet for the dancers below, and the gay late feasters furnished entertainment, fresh and straight from life, to the company above, for whose benefit many of their most daring sallies were evidently thrown out—and who, after their recent experiences, were pleased to be so restfully entertained.
Toasts, drunk in ginger-pop and persimmon beer innocent of guile, were offered after grace at the beginning of the supper, the toaster stepping out into the yard and bowing to the gallery while he raised his glass or, literally, his tin cup—the passage of the master's bottle among the men, later in the evening, being a distinct feature.
The first toast was offered to the ladies—"Mistus an' Company-ladies"; and the next, following a suggestion of the first table, where the host had been much honored, was worded about in this wise:
"We drinks to de health, an' wealth, an' de long life of de leadin' gentleman o' Brake Island, who done put 'isself to so much pains an' money to give dis party. But to make de toast accordin' to manners, so hit'll fit de gentleman's visitors long wid hisself, I say let's drink to who but 'Ole Marse Adam!'"
It is easy to start a laugh when a festive crowd is primed for fun, and this toast, respectfully submitted with a low bow by an ancient and privileged veteran of the rosined bow, was met with screams of delight.