It was the birthday of the Sultana Valideh. The Sultana, Mahmoud's mother, was, we may remember, a Frenchwoman, whose parents, natives of the Isle of Martinique, had sent her to Paris while still very young, and placed her, till she was sixteen, in a convent to be educated. Then the family sent word that she was to return to the beautiful island on the farther side of Africa; but during the voyage a tempest destroyed the ship, and the crew had to take to the boats. One of these boats, in which was the pretty French girl, was captured by Barbary corsairs, who sold her to the Sultan. The rest we know, of course-- "Elle eut beau dire: Je me meurs! De nonne elle devient Sultane!" Those poor flowers that are brought together from all the corners of the earth to stock the Grand Signior's harem, and who know nothing except how to love, paled before the radiant loveliness and the sparkling wit of this damsel, who had been brought up in the midst of European culture. She became the favorite wife of Selim, she bore him Mahmoud, and her son loved his mother much better than all his damsels put together. A great surprise had been prepared for the Sultana Valideh. The Sultan had arranged the whole thing himself in secret. He was going to give a dance, after the European fashion, in the Seraglio. Tailors were brought from Vienna who set to work upon dresses in the latest fashion for the odalisks; the eunuchs were taught the latest waltz music, a minuet, and two French square dances; and the girls were all taught how to dance these dances. The men who had admittance into the harem, the Kizlar-Agasi, the Anaktar Bey, the heir to the throne (Abdul Mejid), and the Sultan himself, wore brown European dress-suits, so that when the Sultana stepped into the magnificently illuminated porcelain chamber she stood rooted to the floor with astonishment. She imagined herself to be at a court ball at Paris, just as she had seen it at the Louvre when a child. A surging mob of hundreds and hundreds of young odalisks was proudly strutting to and fro in stylish dresses of the latest fashion, in long gloves and silk stockings. Instead of turbans, plumed hats and bouquets adorned the magnificent masses of their curled and frizzled locks. They moved about with bare shoulders and bosoms, in soft wavy dresses, with fans painted over with butterflies, freely laughing and jesting in this, to them, newest of worlds, and the only thing that differentiated this ball from our dancing entertainments was the absence of the darker portion of the show--the masculine element.