No more glances of scorn, but glances of desire from ladies, both married and single. The navy scowled malignantly, and many a lieutenant, and many a middy thought of pistols and challenges. I surveyed with a calm smile of satisfaction the revolution I had accomplished. The navy was down, had become at once old-fashioned, and several rather advanced belles boldly talked of their “minnikin diddling steps.” My triumph was not yet completed. Supper had to be gone through—and such a supper. When I am bidden to a feast, I go and make the most of it. So I did here, and found myself one of the lingerers who still have another glass of champagne, and another glass of sherry to take before the cravings of their stomachs will be satisfied. I was interrupted in my discussion of another delicate bit of quail, by the music of a Strauss waltz. I had engaged P. for the German Quadrille, and it was soon to begin. I reeled down stairs into the dancing hall, and was luckily enabled, by immense ocular exertion, to distinguish the tall figure and blue head-dress of P., amid the blur of sizes and colors which was before me. Soon was I at her side, and soon the dance began. I followed my friend’s advice, to keep my heels to the floor and not jump; but certainly never was so light a pair of heels kept down. It may have been that the head they carried bore the same proportion to them as corks do to feathers; sure it is, that winged Mercury never glided over the earth with a lightness that surpassed mine, as I glided over that ball-room floor. We waltzed several figures of the German Quadrille, till we came to that one where a chair is placed in the centre of the circle, in which each lady in turn sits, and has the opportunity of refusing or accepting every gentleman in the set as a partner in a waltz. It was here the crown was put upon my glory of that evening. Every gentleman was refused but me, and by every lady too. The unfortunate rejected ones stood in a long row behind the chair, while I, shabby, was the only favored one. As for the real state of my dress and appearance, it was as much worse as possible, than when I first entered the hall and was sniffed at—for I had become very much heated by my exertions; my hair was flying in every direction, and my dickey, which in the earlier part of the evening had stood with a dignified erectness, now hung wet and flabby, as when it dangled the previous Monday morning from my washerwoman’s line. Shall I tell of my dreams that night? I had none, for I slept too sound. But on some future occasion I will relate how I became a great beau, and how I waltzed with a foreign countess, and more than all about my new clothes. L. L. * * * * * THE SKATER’S SONG