such as red, white and blue umbrellas, like those used as signs in our cities; patchwork and Marseilles quilts; orange shirts and green dresses; pink and pearl shells; little bells; small mirrors; and beads about four inches long made of fine pipeclay.  These beads cost a dollar and a half each, and are made especially for them in one place in Massachusetts.  They wear them in rows of twenty or thirty on the breast, making quite an expensive necklace.

The dance lasted, perhaps, two hours.  After all were tired presents were brought and laid upon the ground, consisting of hard-tack, calico, etc.  All through the dance the wind was blowing the dust about in clouds, and the Indians held their blankets and fans of eagles’ feathers to their eyes.  Several wore blue goggles—­we knew not whether for use or beauty.

LAURA WINTHROP JOHNSON.

A MEETING AT SEA.

It seems like a long, long while ago since Uncle Joseph told it to me as a recollection of his youthful days; and as Uncle Joseph was then no longer young, it must have been long, long ago that it happened.  It was dull work sitting day after day on the hard benches and listening to lectures on therapeutics and anatomy which I had already heard twice verbatim—­for I was a third-course student—­and it was scarcely more entertaining to sit alone in my cozy little chamber and pore over the dry details of my medical textbooks.  How often would my gaze wander through the attic-window to rest upon the broad blue bosom of the Ashley, and watch the course of the rippling current which flashed and glistened in the October sunlight!  It was very hard to fix my mind upon the contra-indications of calomel and the bromides while the snowy gulls were circling gracefully over the gliding waters, and the noisy crows were leading my thoughts across the stream to the island thickets where I knew the wild-deer lay.  I remember how I used to interpret their cawing into mocking laughter because I had no wings to follow them into those shady fastnessess, which were filled by my hunter’s fancy with all kinds of temptations to manly sport.  And then, just as I was about to turn; with a great effort from the alluring scene, there would be a sudden commotion among the distant wavelets, and a huge white mass would flash for a moment in the sunshine as the enormous devil-fish of the Carolina waters would spring into the air in his unwieldy gambols, and fall again with a mighty splash into his native element.

“Then you had better have had your study-hours at night.”  I am sure that’s what you are thinking.  I thought so too, and put the thought into practice; but then it would be moonlight sometimes, and the white beams would shimmer on the water, and the regular beat and dash of the oars would come to my ears in time with the wild, chanting melody of the boatmen’s song.  That was just the way of it on the night when I heard this story; and when my cigar had burned out and the autumn air had begun to chill me with its fresh, crisp breath, I said to myself, “It’s of no use.  I’ll shut the old book and spend an hour with Uncle Joseph.”