After a while I got my senses back, and looked out for _him_. He wasn't there yet, and that gave me a chance to see things. Four more heaps of glass, that seemed as if they had caught fire, hung in the other end of the room, and beyond them was a fountain of water, a-sparkling and a-flashing and a-tinkling in a make-believe garden by moonlight, with live fish swimming in it, and live flowers blooming in piles and heaps around it, and make-believe trees. Half running round the room was a lot of marble posts, with white flower-pots running over with sweetness, and linked together with running vines, that made you feel yourself almost out of doors. All this was splendid; but there was one spot that everybody looked towards, and I most of all. Three boxes, cushioned with red velvet, were just chained together with great wreaths of flowers such as I never saw in a garden; but I knew they were genuine because of the scent, which was delicious. Banners set full of stars and stripes of red and white silk, all tangled in with flowers, hung over these boxes, and right in the centre streamed a white silk banner, on which our old bald eagle and the black eagles of all the Russias flocked together as sociable as robins in a nest. "There he is! There he is!" I started. I caught my breath, for back of the white flag _he_ stood with the light a-shining on his beautiful yellow hair, and a smile on his lips. Oh, how grand, how tall, how gorgeous! Everybody was a-looking at him. The girls around me--always forward, and _so_ silly--began twittering together, and looking that way as if he would ever think of dancing with them. They swarmed around me, as a representative person. They forgot their own trivialities, and rendered me such homage as genius commands from commonplace minds. "You are an author," said they. "You belong to the great aristocracy of the world. Speak for us. He cannot dance with all of us, but he can look this way through his opera-glass, and give us all a chance of being put in the papers as the beautiful young lady he admired so much. We appoint you a committee of one. Address him in our behalf. Get some memento of him that we may leave to future generations." The entreaties of these young creatures went to my heart. I raised my forefinger, which was like an oath to them, and says I: "Thanks for this honor. Like a Roman matron I will do my duty. Wait." I arose from my seat, and swept, with a dignity and grace that must have done the Society I represent great honor, around the gallery, and found my way into the private retiring-room of our illustrious guest. It was small but beautifully furnished. My pink silk, as it trailed in, seemed to fill the whole room. In the looking-glass I saw a figure, tall, commanding; I may say queenly--but enough of that. A person stood near the door and looked in. I lifted my finger; he approached.