Beth smiled in a puzzled way, looking inquiringly at her uncle. She knew there was some clue to the meaning of his nonsense, but she lacked it. “I saw an allusion to our ball in the paper, that’s what reminded me,” Mr. Cortlandt went on. “You look blank, Beth. Is it possible you haven’t heard of the ball?” “Mama has been so busy about it we haven’t seen her much lately, and Natalie and I never thought to tell Beth, because we’re not in it anyway, so it doesn’t matter,” said Alys. “Oh, dear me, it matters a lot!” exclaimed her father. “Where’s your family pride, my dear? The Cortlandt ball is going down in the history of New York! And I’m not sure you mayn’t see it. I think I’ll put in a plea to the hostess to make an exception to the rule and let you young people sit up that night to see the pageant. It will be worth looking at and one night won’t ruin your budding beauty! I should like to have Beth see it. We’ll hide you in the gallery, but we’ll costume you first, so if you are discovered you’ll be in the picture.” “What is it, Uncle Jim?” asked Beth, as Natalie and Alys clapped their hands and softly cheered this decision. “Fancy one’s own niece not knowing what I’m talking about when the daily papers are eagerly discussing ‘Mr. and Mrs. James Cortlandt’s Elizabethan ball!’” cried Uncle Jim. “That’s what it is, Bethie--an Elizabethan Ball. It is to be a masked ball of the period when Bess of England reigned, and Will Shakespeare was writing and acting at the Globe Theatre in London, and Sir Walter Raleigh was spreading his cloak for the queen to pass over the mud dry shod while, at the same time, he was trying to spread her realm over the sea into our own Virginia. There’s a royal prince visiting the United States just now, little niece, whom your aunt and I have met several times; we are giving the ball in his honor. It will be rather magnificent, we hope. It is to be a Shrovetide Masque--now doesn’t that sound Elizabethan? Next Tuesday is the day--Shrove Tuesday. There will be court dancing, gavottes, minuets, those formal old dances which so well suit the brocades and farthingales of that period, and there’ll be a play acted without scenery, right on the ballroom floor among the guests, just as plays were given in Shakespeare’s day. At midnight we unmask and sup, and end with modern dancing. You children shall see it; I want you to.” Beth listened, bewildered, to this amazing explanation in which a real, live Royal Prince was mingled with ghosts of historical splendor. “Do you think Aunt Alida will care?” she gasped, hardly knowing what she said. “If you sit up to see the ball? Not she, not after a moment. She’ll never be hard-hearted enough to deny us,” declared Uncle Jim, identifying his desire with Beth’s in the most satisfactory way.