"Sure this wild fantastic band Must have come from Fairy-land. Those who live in History's page, Step once more upon Life's stage. All the poet's dreamings bright, In the flesh appear to-night, Columbine and Harlequin, Knight, Crusader, Saracen, Cleopatra and her Roman, Herod, Borgia loved of no man, Antoinette and Louis Seize, Faust with Mephistopheles, All beneath the gas-lamps' gleam, Dance as in some magic dream. Surely at the break of day, Will the vision fade away, And these spirits bright and fair, Vanish into viewless air." Mrs. Veilsturm had certainly no reason to complain of lack of popularity, as she looked at her salons thronged with all fashionable London. Her diplomatic behaviour towards Errington for the last few weeks had borne good fruit, having converted foes into friends, and friends into red-hot partizans, therefore everyone came to her fancy dress ball, and this entertainment which signalised her exit from London Society was proving a wonderful success. Never had she looked so perfectly lovely as she did on this night, when, robed as Cleopatra, she stood near the door receiving her guests. Swathed in diaphanous tissues, broidered with strange figures in gold and silver, with jewels flashing star-like from every portion of her dress, the double crown of Egypt on her lustrous coils of hair, and a trailing mantle of imperial purple silk drooping from her shoulders, she looked like the embodiment of some splendid civilization long since perished from the earth. Truly this woman, with her majestic bearing, her voluptuous form, her rich Eastern beauty, and slow sensuous movements, looked like that antique coquette of the slow-flowing Nile, whose face, fair and deathless, still smiles at us across the long centuries from out the darkness of old Egypt. The huge room resembled a garden of flowers blown by the wind, as the restless dancers in their brilliant costumes swayed hither and thither to the music of the band. Dainty Watteau shepherdesses, serene Greek maidens, mediæval pages, steel-clad knights, Cavaliers, Louis Quatorze musketeers, and divers other picturesque figures, mingled together in gay confusion, laughing, talking, jesting, smiling, flirting and whispering, without pause or rest. And above the murmur of voices, the sound of feet gliding over the polished floor, and the indistinct frou-frou of dresses, sounded the rhythmical swing of the valse "Caprice d'une femme," played by an unseen orchestra. The gas-lamps in their many-coloured shades gleamed softly over the noisy crowd, the faint perfume of myriad flowers, drooping in the heat on the decorated walls, floated dreamily on the heavy air, and round and round with laughter and jesting swept the dancers, while the fitful music arose and fell with its recurrent burden of passionate tenderness.