How they all did sing--and play! Several were accomplished musicians. One knew the Latin names of much of the flora of the island, and found time and small coins sufficient to interest a colony of eager pickaninnies to gather specimens for her "herbarium." Without ever having prepared a meal, they could even cook, as they had soon amply proven by the heaping confections which were always in evidence at the man-hour--bon-bons, kisses, pralines, what not?--all fragrant with mint, orange-flower, rose-leaf, or violet, or heavy with pecans or cocoanut. In the afternoon, when the men came home, they frequently engaged in contests of skill--in rowing or archery or croquet; or, following nature's manifold suggestions, they drifted in couples, paddling indolently among the floating lily-pads on the bayou, or reclining among the vines in the summer-houses, where they sipped iced orange syrup or claret sangaree, either one a safe lubricator, by mild inspiration or suggestion, of the tongue of young love, which is apt to become tied at the moment of most need. [Illustration: "Sipped iced orange syrup or claret sangaree"] With the poems of Moore to reinforce him with easy grace of words, a broad-shouldered fellow would naively declare himself a peri, standing disconsolate at the gate of his lady's heart, while she quoted Fanny Fern for her defense, or, if she were passing intellectual and of a broader culture, she would give him invitation in form of rebuff from "The Lady of the Lake," or a scathing line from Shakspere. Of course, all the young people knew their Shakspere--more or less. They had their fortunes told in a half-dozen fashions, by withered old crones whose dim eyes, discerning life's secrets held lightly in supension, mated them recklessly _on suspicion_. Visiting the colored churches, they attended some of the novel services of the plantation, as, for instance, a certain baptismal wedding, which is to say a combined ceremony, which was in this case performed quite regularly and decorously in the interest of a coal-black piccaninny, artlessly named Lily Blanche in honor of two of the young ladies present whom the bride-mother had seen but once out driving, but whose gowns of flowered organdy, lace parasols, and leghorn hats had stirred her sense of beauty and virtue to action. Although there was much amusement over this incongruous function, the absence of any sense of embarrassment in witnessing so delicate a ceremony--one which in another setting would easily have become indelicate--was no doubt an unconscious tribute to the primitive simplicity of the contracting parties.