"Maybe I will--stay and take care of poor, old Gov. Broadvally, who has gout in his great toe and infidelity on his brain, and neither wife nor child to make him a poultice, or read him a sermon," said Wynnette, as she sprang up and left the side of her partner. "Rosemary, darling, will you dance this set with me? I wished so much to dance the first set with you, but----" Roland Bayard, who was the speaker, paused, and Rosemary finished the sentence for him: "You were caught and carried away captive by a gay lady! And what could a gentleman do?" she asked, smiling. "Will you dance this set with me, then, darling child?" he repeated. "With real pleasure, Roland," she answered, giving him her hand. And he led her out. In the sets that were now forming, the Grandiere girls, as well as all the other children, danced, and all the grown women sat down, except Miss Sibby, who conscripted Mr. Force to dance with her. Wynnette, as a gentleman, led out the youngest Miss Grandiere. And, the two sets being complete, the music struck up, the dancing commenced, "And all went merry as a marriage bell." The dancing concluded with the rollicking merry-go-round, called, in these days, the "Virginia Reel," but in the olden times known as "Sir Roger de Coverly," in which all hands--men, women and children, young and old--joined heartily, and none more heartily than Miss Sibby. "Enjoy yourself as long as you can, sez I!" she hastily whispered into the ear of Le, as he whirled her around in the giddy maelstrom of that mad dance. At ten o'clock the fiddlers had rest to their elbows and the banjo players to their hands, when they were marched off to the kitchen, to partake of good Christmas cheer. In the parlor the guests were seated in somewhat stiff and formal rows, on sofas and chairs ranged along the wall, while two menservants, Jake and Jerry, bearing large trays of refreshments, made the circuit of the room--Jerry going first, with a great plum cake and plain pound cake, each beautifully frosted and decorated, and neatly cut from the center to the edge, ready for helping, and a pile of small, china plates and damask napkins. Le Force, walking beside this waiter, served each guest with a plate, a napkin and a slice of each cake. Behind Jerry came Jake, bearing another large tray laden with cut-glass goblets filled to the brim with snowy, frothy eggnog, or amber apple toddy, or golden lemon punch. And beside this waiter walked Mr. Force, serving each guest with the special nectar he or she preferred. When these good things had been disposed of, although it was but half-past ten, carriages were ordered, and all the county neighbors took leave and went home, for these were simple days "before the war"--or "befo' de wo," as the negroes more truly, if less grammatically, put it. And the people wished to get home and go to bed, that they might rise on Christmas morning in time to attend church in the forenoon.