The bitter wind reigned over London for seven long days, meting untempered chastisement to its reluctant subjects, and dying unwept and gasping on a Monday night. Tuesday was fair, still by comparison and indeed. The sun shone and the sky was blue, and the smoke rose straight out of its chimneys with never the breath of a breeze to bend it, or even to set its columns swaying over the high roofs. There was a great calm. But, with it all, the weather was terribly cold. That rare beauty which Dusk may bring to the Metropolis was that evening vouchsafed. Streets that were mean put off their squalor, ways that were handsome became superb. Grime went unnoticed, ugliness fell away. All things crude or staring became indistinct, veiled with a web of that soft quality which only Atmosphere can spin and, having spun, hang about buildings of a windless eve. As Night drew on, Magic came stealing down the blurred highways. Lamps became lanterns, shedding a muffled light, deepening and charging with mystery the darkness beyond. Old friends grew unfamiliar. Where they had stood, fantastic shapes loomed out of the mist and topless towers rose up spectral to baffle memory. Perspective fled, shadow and stuff were one, and, save where the radiance of the shops in some proud thoroughfare made gaudy noon of evening, the streets of Town were changed to echoing halls and long, dim, rambling galleries, hung all with twinkling lights that stabbed the gloom but deep enough to show their presence, as do the stars. So, slowly and with a dazzling smile, London put on her cloak of darkness. By eight o'clock you could not see two paces ahead. On Wednesday morning the fog was denser than it had been the night before. There was no sign of its abatement, not a puff of wind elbowed its way through the yellow drift, and the cold was intense. The prospect of leaving a comfortable home at nine in the evening to undertake a journey of some two miles, clad in habiliments which, while highly ornamental, were about as protective from cold as a grape-skin rug, was anything but alluring. For reasons of my own, however, I was determined to get to the Ball. My sister, whom nothing daunted, and Jill, who was wild with excitement, and had promised readily to reserve more dances than could possibly be rendered, were equally firm. Jonah thought it a fool's game, and said as much. Berry was of the same opinion, but expressed it less bluntly, and much more offensively. After a long tirade--