"Dat music you heah', dat ain't no dance-music. She plays dat for de passengers to eat by, so dey tell me. But I reckon dey jes p'onounces supper dat-a-way, same as you'd ring a bell. An' when de people sets down to de table, dey mus' sho'ly have de manners to stop long enough to let 'em eat in peace. Yit an' still, whilst she looks like Heaven, I'd a heap ruther set heah an' see her go by 'n to put foot in her, 'ca'se I'd look for her to 'splode out de minute I landed in her an' to scatter my body in one direction an' my soul somewhars else. No; even ef she was Heaven, I'd ruther 'speriment heah a little longer, settin' on de sof' grass an' smellin' de yearnin' trees an' listenin' at de bumblebees a-bumblin', an' go home an' warm up my bacon an' greens for supper, an' maybe go out foragin' for my Sunday chicken to-night in de dark o' de moon. Hyah! My stomach hit rings de dinner-bell for me, jes as good as a brass ban'." "Me, too!" chuckled the smoker. "I'll take my chances on dry lan', every time. I know I'll nuver lead a p'ocession but once-t, and dat'll be at my own fun'al, an' I don't inten' to resk my chances. But she is sho' one noble-lookin' boat." By this time the great steamboat--the wonderful apparition so aptly typifying Heaven and hell--had passed. She carried only the usual number of passengers, but at this evening hour they crowded the guards, making a brilliant showing. Family parties they were mostly, with here and there groups of young folk, generally collected about some popular girl who formed a center around which coquetry played mirthfully in the breeze. A piquant Arcadian bride, "pretty as red shoes," artlessly appearing in all her white wedding toggery, her veil almost crushed by its weight of artificial orange-flowers, looked stoically away from the little dark husband who persisted in fanning her vigorously, while they sat in the sun-filled corner which they had taken for its shade while the boat was turned into the landing to take them aboard. And, of course, there was the usual quota of staid couples who had survived this interesting stage of life's game. Nor was exhibition of rather intimate domesticity entirely missing. Infancy dined in Nature's own way, behind the doubtful screening of waving palmetto fans. While among the teething and whooping-cough contingents the observer of life might have found both tragedy and comedy for his delectation. Mild, submissive mothers of families, women of the Creole middle class mainly,--old and withered at thirty-five, all their youthful magnolia tints gone wrong, as in the flower when its bloom is passed--exchanged maternal experiences, and agreed without dissent that the world was full of trouble, but "God was good."