But what Zoe's eye rested on longest were the costume and deportment of the ladies. A few were in good taste; others aimed at a greater variety of beautiful colors than the fair have, up to this date, succeeded in combining, without inflicting more pain on the beholders than a beneficent Creator--so far as we can judge by his own system of color--intended the cultivated eye to suffer. Example--as the old writers used to say--one lady fired the air in primrose satin, with red-velvet trimming. This mild mixture re-appeared on her head in a primrose hat with a red feather. A gold chain, so big that it would have done for a felon instead of a fool, encircled her neck, and was weighted with innumerable lockets, which in size and inventive taste resembled a poached egg, and betrayed the insular goldsmith. A train three yards long completed this gorgeous figure. She had commenced life a shrimp-girl, and pushed a dredge before her, instead of pulling a silken besom after her. Another stately queen (with an “a”) heated the atmosphere with a burnous of that color the French call _flamme d'enfer,_ and cooled it with a green bonnet. A third appeared to have been struck with the beauty of a painter's palette, and the skill with which its colors mix before the brush spoils them. Green body, violet skirts, rose-colored trimmings, purple sleeves, light green boots, lavender gloves. A shawl all gauze and gold, flounced like a petticoat; a bonnet so small, and red feather so enormous and all-predominant, that a peacock seemed to be sitting on a hedge sparrow's nest. Zoe suspected these polychromatic ladies at a glance, and observed their manners, in a mistrustful spirit, carefully. She was little surprised, though a good deal shocked, to find that some of them seemed familiar, and almost jocular, with the croupiers; and that, although they did not talk loud, being kept in order by the general etiquette, they rustled and fidgeted and played in a devil-may-care sort of manner. This was in great measure accounted for by the circumstance that they were losing other people's money: at all events, they often turned their heads over their shoulders, and applied for fresh funds to their male companions. Zoe blushed at all this, and said to Vizard, “I should like to see the other rooms.” She whispered to Miss Maitland, “Surely they are not very select in this one.” “Lead on,” said Vizard; “that is the way.” Fanny had not parted with his arm all this time. As they followed the others, he said, “But she will find it is all the same thing.” Fanny laughed in his face. “Don't you _see?_ C'est la chasse au Severne qui commence.” “En voil'a un se'v'ere,” replied he. She was mute. She had not learned that sort of French in her finishing-school. I forgive it. The next room was the same thing over again. Zoe stood a moment and drank everything in, then turned to Vizard, blushed, and said, “May we play a little now?” “Why, of course.” “Fanny!”