Those poor Vermilions! They had spent many thousands, and yet people hurried away or came late, only to eat the supper; old Vermilion was a magnificent provider. Of course there were some who never went to the Vermilion’s at all, but always to Mrs. O’Neal’s; among these were the Temples and old Mrs. Allestree, who made a point to be present at Martha’s house, for she and Martha had been schoolmates and were still good friends, although nothing could have been more amusing than the contrast; the one in her old-fashioned dress with her placid face and her kindly smile, and the other, tight-laced, over-burdened with satin and jewels, her old head wagging and quivering under its high white pompadour and its jewelled _aigrette_. Her rooms were thronged; the dark polished floors, the old mahogany furniture, the glittering mirrors, the bewildering array of candles, tall candles and short candles, huge seven-armed silver candelabra, short, stout silver candlesticks, the masses of white lilies, the sweet, heavy odor of them; what a beautiful, dazzling, fanciful scene it was, when the lovely women in their rich dresses began to throng every room and corridor and even lingered laughing and talking on the wide stairs and in the gallery above which commanded the lower hall and the ballroom, where the fluted pillars were festooned with vines and crowned with capitals of roses. The old, old woman, with her white head and her false teeth and her gorgeous gown, receiving her guests, chattering and smiling and proud; truly the ruling passion is strong in death. She stood there nobly, heroically, cheerfully, though her tight satin shoes pinched her poor, old feet, and the draughts from the door sent a shiver of rheumatic pain across her poor, old, bare, shrivelled shoulders; and the wide expanse of her ample neck and bosom, clad in jewels and the imagination, felt the breeze too. After awhile the guests from the fancy-ball began to drift in, a few at first in costume, and then more and more, until the ballroom took on the look of a harlequin show, and there was much gay laughter and criticism of each new arrival from those who had disdained the Vermilion ball or who had never been asked.