It was indeed a smiling welcome, and exclamations of delight announced the passage of the boats in turn as they rounded the willow bend. The firing of a single cannon, with a simultaneous display of fireworks, and music by the plantation band, celebrated the landing of the last boat. Servants in the simple old-fashioned dress--checked homespun with white accessories, to which were added for the occasion, great rosettes of crimson worn upon the breast--took care of the party at the landing, bringing up the rear with hand-luggage, which they playfully balanced upon their heads or shifted with fancy steps. The old-time supper--of the sort which made the mahogany groan--was served on the broad back "gallery," while the plantation folk danced in the clearing beyond, a voice from the basement floor calling out the figures. This was a great sight. Left here to their own devices as to dress, the negroes made so dazzling a display that, no matter how madly they danced, they could scarcely answer the challenge of their own riotous color schemes. Single dancers followed; then "lad_y_es 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!'"