If the effect was bewildering, it was not unpleasant. The smoke-laden air of the dim old room seemed suddenly clarified, made radiant. A movement of chairs and of their occupants ran through the chamber, like a murmur of applause, as we rose to greet the resplendent apparition. But there came a veritable outburst of admiration when my lady's companion appeared in view. It was our Daisy, robed like a princess, who dawned upon our vision. She was blushing as much from embarrassment as from novel pride, yet managed to keep her pretty head up, smiling at us all, and to bear herself with grace. Lady Berenicia, from the wealth of finery in those bulky chests which honest Mr. Cross in vain had protested against bringing over the ocean and up to this savage outpost, had tricked out the girl in wondrous fashion. Her gown was not satin, like the other, but of a soft, lustreless stuff, whose delicate lavender folds fell into the sweetest of violet shadows. I was glad to see that her neck and arms were properly covered. The laces on the sleeves were tawny with age; the ribbon by which the little white shawl was decorously gathered at the bosom carried the faint suggestion of yellow to a distinct tone, repeated and deepened above by the color of the maiden's hair. This hair, too, was a marvel of the dresser's art--reared straight and tight from the forehead over a high-arched roll, and losing strictness of form behind in ingenious wavy curls, which seemed the very triumph of artlessness; it was less wholly powdered than Lady Berenicia's, so that the warm gold shone through the white dust in soft gradations of half tints; at the side, well up, was a single salmon tea-rose, that served to make everything else more beautiful. Picture to yourself this delicious figure--this face which had seemed lovely before, and now, with deft cosmetics, and a solitary tiny patch, and the glow of exquisite enjoyment in the sweet hazel eyes, was nothing less than a Greuze's dream--picture our Daisy to yourself, I say, and you may guess in part how flattering was her reception, how high and fast rose the gallant congratulations that the Valley boasted such a beauteous daughter. Sir William himself gave her his arm, jovially protesting that this was not the Mohawk country, but France--not Johnson Hall, but Versailles. I came on at the tail of the dinner procession, not quite easy in my mind about all this. Chapter X. The Masquerade Brings Me Nothing but Pain. There were, in all, ten of us at the table. Sir William beamed upon us from the end nearest the windows, with Daisy on his left hand and the London dame on the other--in the place of distinction to which she was, I suppose, entitled. Below Lady Berenicia sat Mr. Stewart, Sir John, and Walter Butler. I was on the left side below Mr. Cross. These details come back to me as if they were of yesterday, when I think of that dinner.