At intervals along the table are alluring glass dishes,
filled with crystallized fruits.
After this come the sweets. There is no cake, as we know it, but
meringues (French kisses), baked custard coated with caramel sauce,
which they call _flaon_; a kind of cocoanut macaroon, the little
gelatinous seeds of the nipa palm, boiled in sugar syrup, and half
a dozen kinds of preserves and candied fruits. Tinto accompanies the
supper, and possibly champagne.
As two or three hundred people are served on such an occasion, the
intermission for supper is a long one, and dancing is not resumed
till half-past nine or ten o'clock. It may then continue till
midnight or dawn, just as the actions of a few important guests may
determine. Filipinos are very quick to follow a lead; and if, owing
perhaps to a concurrence of events which may be perfectly foreign to
the occasion, a number of prominent people leave early, the rest soon
take flight.
In one of the later years of my stay my good fortune led me to
witness a wedding of another type, which differed from the class I
have described as the simple rural gathering at home differs from the
exotic atmosphere of a fashionable reception. It was just after my
return from vacation that one morning a group of my pupils burst in,
accompanying a middle-aged Filipina who hesitatingly made known her
errand. Her niece, who lived some five or six miles up the river,
was to be married that night, and a large number of people from town
were going up.
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