prevented her from fulfilling. Not unnaturally, therefore, when some time afterwards she revisited America, she was enthusiastically welcomed on the sacred stage of New York’s Metropolitan Opera House. Strict connoisseurs of the dance are disposed to scoff at Loie Fuller’s performance, but the fact must not be overlooked that the arrangement of the drapery is not such an easy matter as might be supposed when viewed from the other side of the footlights. When the enormous dimensions of the skirt are taken into account, the achievement of managing it with grace is not altogether to be despised. The strain on the arms is severe. To wave them in such a manner that the folds of the skirt do not become entangled with one another, and that the whole of it is in motion at the same time, is a feat of dexterity difficult of accomplishment. Certainly the crowd of imitators who sought notoriety in this style never achieved the variety and beauty of the effects which “La Loie” obtained. Amateurs who took up the dance in the enthusiasm of the moment gave exhibitions of embarrassed entanglement that provided their audience with a more amusing entertainment than they had anticipated. I have heard of at least one lady, who elected to follow in Loie Fuller’s footsteps for the sake of charity, becoming so enveloped in her hundred yards of drapery that she had at last to be carried ignominiously from the stage in the arms [Illustration: LETTY LIND _Photograph: Ellis & Walery_] of an attendant and unravelled behind the scenes like a twisted ball of string. After it was first introduced, the Serpentine Dance underwent much elaboration. Not only were various harmonies of colour thrown upon the dress, but also strange and wonderful patterns of flowers and lace and barbaric designs. The variety of effects thus obtained were endless. At one moment the skirt was a moving wave of rose-pink; the next it had changed to a dark purple on which gleamed golden stars; afterwards it took the design of a Japanese embroidery; and again it became a flame of fire burning in the darkness. And not content with these bewildering displays, some of those whose business it is to refine upon vulgarity devised a startling and terrible novelty--they utilised the dancer as a backcloth and projected upon her photographs of the prominent people of the day!