Each dance was to be an idealization of a particular rose. In the audience, personal preferences were quite noticeable; for favorite dances were boldly championed, not only in corsage bunch and boutonnières, but by superb bouquets of enormous size. It is doubtful if more beautiful floral decorations were ever seen. Viewed from the stage, the dress circle and parquet appeared a huge garden of beauty; the boxes, fairy bowers, twined with their representative roses. Those attending, almost without exception, were in full evening dress. Gay parties of visitors from the various hotels waited eagerly for the rise of the curtain, satisfied that the decorations of the house justified great expectations for the performance. Anon, were heard surprised confessions from the provincial Easterner, who had for the first time discovered the existence of a civilized West. Mrs. Wilbur laughingly owned that her only opportunity for enjoying a peep at the notorious "wild and woolly" was one afternoon when she had gone into Los Angeles to a wild and woolly show from New York. The show pretended to represent the common peculiarities of the West, whereas she blushed to acknowledge it an embarrassing portrayal of Eastern conceit and prejudices. Mariposilla was to dance in the Spanish dance. She was to personify the Gold of Ophir rose--their subtile charms would mingle at last. It is hardly necessary to relate that our box bloomed with her chosen rose; that we ourselves heralded our devotion by wearing no rose but the Gold of Ophir. As the overture died away, the curtain lifted upon a scene at once familiar with local beauty. The time of year was supposed to be November; and at the foot of the protecting Sierra Madre, whose tops stretched away in the distance, we beheld the old garden of Las Flores. The gray haze of summer still hung about the peaks, for the Silver Harlequin, the son of the mighty Rain God, had not come. Nature was inactive, as yet unable to overcome the lethargy of her annual rest. In the garden, sheltered by interlacing trees and tall palms, upon a couch of verdure, slept the goddess Flora--her pagan spirit now at last purified and free, after weary wanderings in regions of ice and snow. Close to the Goddess slumbered the golden Poppies, who ring always the first sweet bells of spring. The Poppies were dainty children, whose golden heads and gowns of yellow and green told instantly the story of the Foothills. The music, which from the first had been soft and dreamy, now suddenly grew harsh. Its poetry was gone, for stealing into the peaceful garden came the ashy Breath of the torrid Desert.