When Emilius was gone, and the ladies had also disappeared to put on their ball-dresses, Roderick took some of the young men aside and brought them to his own room. "It is getting late," he said,--"it will soon be dark; so now be quick all of you and get your masks on, and we will make this night a right mad and merry one. Any device you can think of, no matter what; the more hideous objects you can make yourselves, the better I shall be pleased--not a monster in creation but what I must have him--humpbacks, fat paunches, all of them. A wedding is such a strange piece of business, married people find, all of a sudden, such a wholly new fairy-tale set of circumstances round their necks, that we cannot make it absurd and mad enough to start them properly in their altered condition, and set them rolling along their new road; so to-night shall be a right wild mad nightmare, and never listen to any one that tells you to be reasonable." "Don't alarm yourself," said Anderson; "we brought a box of masks and dresses from town with us that will astonish even you." "And only look here," said Roderick, "what a treasure I have got from my tailor! the tasteless wretch was going to clip it to pieces for lappets. He bought it, he said, from an old woman, who I fancy must have worn it at Lucifer's gala on the Block's berg. This scarlet bodice with its lace and fringe, and the cap here all over glittering with gold, will look infinitely becoming; and then with this green petticoat on, and saffron trimmings, and this hideous mask, I will go as an old woman at the head of the whole troop of travesters to their room, and we will lead off our young lady in triumph to the ball; come, be quick with you." The bugles were still playing, and the company were either dispersed in groups about the garden, or sitting in front of the house. The sun was going down behind a mass of heavy clouds, and a greyish mist was spreading over the landscape, when suddenly its last beams burst out under the dark curtain, and all the landscape round, and the house itself, with its galleries and columns, and wreaths of flowers, was bathed in a blood-red glow. At that moment the bride's parents and the rest of the spectators saw the wild troop of figures sweep along the upper gallery, Roderick going first as the scarlet old woman; and after him humpbacks, fat-paunched monsters with huge periwigs, harlequins, clowns, pantaloons, spectral dwarfs, women with broad hoop-petticoats and yard-high frisures, all like the phantoms of a hideous nightmare. On they went, tumbling, twisting, staggering, tripping, and strutting along the gallery, and disappeared into one of the doors.