What a meal was provided! Of all good things that could be brought from farm or store, there was no lack. The blessing asked, eagerly they began to enjoy what was to them the principal event of the day. Glancing about us, we saw our steward (a man of deeds rather than of words), upon whom all the expense of this feast came, looking around, with beaming eye, over the great company whose hearts he had made glad. We thought of the wife who had stood by his side so many years, helping in every good work, and who would have been there if God had not called her higher. The flushed face of our good housekeeper, who is never too weary or too busy to do a little more, if she can make hearts happy thereby, shone upon us, and we knew her hands had been full for many days. Though her feet were tired, they obeyed the loving heart, and she flew among us like a spirit, watching on all sides that no one should fail to enjoy the dinner. Looking up the table, our hearts ached, as one face after another brought up the old slave days. Some there were who had risen above every discouragement, and in the face of poverty, low wages and many another hindrance, had proved themselves men, gladly denying themselves the comforts of life, that their children’s days might be brighter than their own. We saw there old men, grown grey in their “massa’s” service, turned out without a dollar, to pinch the rest of their lives to keep from suffering. Women, married in the Lord and in the honesty of their own hearts, considered only as so much property, to be abused or neglected as their masters chose. Beauty was a fearful gift to the race, and many of our colored women do not lack the gift. One woman we must speak of, who, having neither riches nor sweetness of temper, made it all good in the wealth of names, which can only be equalled in the royal family. I give a few: “Carrie Lee, Bessie Fee, who but she—Bernaugh.” “Isabel, rise and tell, the glories of Immanuel—Bernaugh.” “Raphael Rogers, Alfred Hart, ’Postle Paul, Caleb after all—Bernaugh.” How she abbreviated these names I know not. The dinner over, the music room quickly filled. Some of our pianists gave sweet music, but so far above a part of the assembly that I’ve no doubt they longed for their “fiddles and banjoes.” By request, they struck up a wailing sound, which rose and fell, with words somewhat after this style: “The ark’s a movin’, movin’, movin’, The ark’s a movin’, move right along.”