Behind Mr. Cortlandt came his guests in pairs, lords and ladies of the great and magnificent time of English Elizabeth. Such colors, such brocades and satins, velvets, laces, feathers, fans, shoes, above all such ropes and suns of jewels Beth had never believed could exist, outside the stories of Eastern magic. The five hundred guests came slowly on, stepping to the time of a minuet which the orchestra was now playing. They were all masked and the men vied with the women in gorgeousness of raiment and jewels. Each man held the left hand of his partner in the entering march high in the air, as in a minuet; with the other hand he clasped his feathered, jeweled hat and the women with their right hand waved their fans or toyed with chains of jewels, making them flash anew as they fingered them. Then came four especially graceful dames, walking backward. Natalie pointed out one to Beth. “That’s mama. No one else on earth could walk backward like that! See how graceful she is; best of them all!” Natalie’s voice was excited; it thrilled with proud admiration of her exquisite mother. Beth arose to see better. Though she was masked Beth felt as sure as Natalie was that the lady in cloth of gold, with a diamond plume in her hair and diamonds radiating everywhere from her splendid costume, was Aunt Alida. “She is Mary Fitton; she told me, but she said I wasn’t to tell any one till to-night,” announced Dirk proudly. “Who is Mary Fitton?” asked Alys. “I know; Miss Deland and I read about her last week,” cried Beth. “She was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth, and Shakespeare wrote his sonnets to her--maybe he did; they aren’t sure. Oh, look, look! There is the queen! That’s why they are walking backward. She isn’t masked. Oh, doesn’t she look for all the world like Queen Elizabeth?” One of Aunt Alida’s friends represented the queen. She had the requisite long, slender face and the glowing red hair. Taking the part of the queen she required no mask, and indeed she was quite enough burdened without it. Her dress looked as if it were made of a metal; she had the great head-dress, the ruff, the heavy sleeves, the jewels and large feather fan of the portrait of the queen which Elizabeth gave to Sir Henry Sidney. Behind this Shrove Night Queen Elizabeth came four more ladies-in-waiting, and then the rest of the guests in pairs, as before. The procession ended with unmasked beef-eaters, with their staves of office, like those who had begun it.