Enough at last, and the room is again cleared. The table is now removed, and according to the religious scruples of the company, they divide. Those who dance take a large room to themselves, someone produces from a green bag a well-worn violin, and it is a matter of only a few minutes before a voice is calling off: “Salute your partners,” “All promenade down the centre,” “All join hands,” etc., and such calls so familiar to many of us now in Ontario. I am not going to say there was as much style about the dance as nowadays, nor were there any long trains to the ladies’ dresses to get entangled under the gentlemen’s feet, but for genuine fun I am free to say the dignified dances of the present day are at a discount. As quickly as one set gets through an eight-hand reel there is another ready to take its place, and so the dance goes on. But we must turn to the other party, still out in the capacious kitchen, whose religious scruples do not permit them to dance. Even if so, they do not fail to glance furtively through the door now and again at the graceful dancers, and almost wish their theology would allow them to join in! A feature peculiar to America is now to be enacted in the kitchen, and it is simply a play among the boys and girls. A “kissing bee” it finally came to be called, and, as time went on, grew less fashionable, though it lingers yet. In those days it was one of our institutions, and must not pass away without a remark. Someone is chosen as judge, and blindfolded and placed in a chair. Two are chosen to lead the victims to the judge, and the hands of the former are held over the judge’s head with the words, “Heavy, heavy, what hangs over?” The judge asks “Fine, or superfine?”--fine, of course, being for the lads, and the superfine for the lasses. Gravely the judge proceeds to pronounce the sentence. We will take one sentence from the judge, at random, among many from memory, which will give an idea of the general tenor of the judicial decisions. Allow the hand above his head to be superfine in this particular case. Sentence: “She must make a double-twisted lord-o’-massy with John Jones.” Now, John Jones knows what this means, and is not averse to kissing a pretty girl, for the judge generally knows his company, and the run of the sweethearts, and usually sends such together. Jones seizes the girl’s hands, elevates her arms to one side, and kisses her on one cheek, turns the hands over and elevates them again to the other side this time, and kisses her again through their arms on the other cheek. Then the next one comes up for sentence. Various sentences were of course given, but they invariably ended in kissing, much to the delight of the young men present.