Edmund is the name of the darky who possibly for half a century has delivered these invitations from door to door. He has been almost as important as the St. Cecilia. He is a social register for Charleston "quality." He is as proud of his descent, his position and his social superiority as though his ancestors had landed in the bay under the sturdy Lion of St. George or the Flying Fleur-de-Lys in the seventeenth century.
The society has never permitted the german to be danced at this ball, although it was introduced in other Southern cities several years before the Civil War. This is a prejudice well known to the Charlestonian, and ignorance of it once tripped up a social aspirant who talked too much.
A certain man of wealth made many an inducement for those in and out of power to have him invited as a guest to one of these balls while he was an usher at a fashionable wedding in Charleston. He did not succeed, but that did not prevent his talking glibly in his own city of the charm and defects of the St. Cecilia as though he had been there. A Charleston girl visiting in that city stood his criticism of her beloved St. Cecilia until he spoke of the _cotillon_.
"Strange," she interrupted, "that you should have danced a german there. No set of managers has allowed this in one hundred and sixty years."
During the hardships of the Civil War and privations of the reconstruction the men abandoned dress suits for these dances. They wore what they could find. Purple and fine linen had disappeared, and if the men who hadn't patched gray uniforms could get whole suits of unbleached Macon Mills cloth, with buttons of gourd seeds in some cases, they were gay about it.
They danced as eagerly as they fought, and tripped the measures of the quadrille as cheerily as they charged under the stimulus of the rebel yell.
They carried their swords at their sides and their hearts on their sleeves, and as willingly offered their sentiments to the prettiest girl as they did their bodies to Federal bullets.
A part of the rare charm of the St. Cecilia dances lies in the presence of the grandmothers and grandfathers of the young set. Delightful old people are present who do not attend other entertainments. What would the St. Cecilians do without Mr. Smith? "Turkey-tail Smith," as he has been called for decades; a nickname to which he does not object. Genial and kindly, he is a part of the atmosphere, always fanning himself and his partner with a turkey-tail fan.