bouquets for the brides. These, duly escorted
by their future husbands, clad in their best, and looking alternate
happiness and sheepishness, had preceded us by a few minutes, and were
waiting our arrival, while all around beamed black faces full of
expectation and interest.

We walked through a lane of sable humanity--for the church was too small
to contain a fourth of the assembled negroes--to the little altar,
before which the six couples were presently posed by the clergyman, in
front of us and himself. That done to everybody's satisfaction, the
Colonel stationed to give away the brides--an arrangement that caused a
visible flutter of delight among them--and as many lookers-on
accommodated within the building as could crowd in, the ceremony was
proceeded with, the clergyman using an abbreviated form of the Episcopal
service, reading it but once, but demanding separate responses. I
noticed that he omitted the words 'until death do ye part,' and I
thought that omission suggestive.

The persons directly concerned behaved with as much propriety as if they
had possessed the whitest of cuticles, being quiet, serious, and
attentive; nor did I detect anything indecorous on the part of the
spectators, beyond an occasional smile or whisper by the younger
negroes, whose soft-skinned, dusky faces and white eyeballs glanced
upward at the six couples with admiring curiosity, and at us, visitors,
with that appealing glance peculiar to the negro--always, to my
thinking, irresistibly touching, and suggestive of dependence on,
humility toward, and entreaty for merciful consideration at the hands of
a superior race. Perhaps, however, the old folks enjoyed the occasion
most, particularly the negresses: one wrinkled crone, of at least
fourscore years, her head bound in, the usual gaudy handkerchief, and
her hands resting on a staff or crutch, went off into a downright
chuckle of irrepressible exultation after the closing benediction,
echoed more openly by the crowd of colored people peeping in at the
doors and windows.

The ceremony over, the concourse adjourned to a large frame building,
part shed, part cotton-house, ordinarily used for storing the staple
plant of South Carolina, before ginning and pressing. The Colonel had
sent his year's crop to Charleston, and the vacant space was now
occupied by a triple row of tables, set out with plates, knives and
forks, and drinking utensils. Here, the newly married couples being
inducted