"Yet you should have done, for it is quite scientifically correct,"--declared Lucio laughing still. "Faith,--with the wings, whom you saw joyously flying towards an impossible Heaven, is _not_ scientifically correct,--have you not told us so?--but the skeleton and the worms were quite of your _cult_! No materialist can deny the correctness of that 'complexion to which we all must come at last.' Positively, some of the ladies look quite pale! How droll it is, that while everybody (to be fashionable, and in favour with the press) must accept Materialism as the only creed, they should invariably become affrighted, or let us say offended, at the natural end of the body, as completed by material agencies!" "Well, it was not a pleasant subject, that last tableau,"--said Lord Elton, as he came out of the theatre with Diana Chesney hanging confidingly on his arm--"You cannot say it was festal!" "It was,--for the worms!" replied Lucio gaily--"Come, Miss Chesney,--and you Tempest, come along with Lady Sibyl,--let us go out in the grounds again, and see my will-o'-the-wisps lighting up." Fresh curiosity was excited by this remark; the people quickly threw off the gruesome and tragic impression made by the strange 'tableaux' just witnessed,--and poured out of the house into the gardens chattering and laughing more noisily than ever. It was just dusk,--and as we reached the open lawn we saw an extraordinary number of small boys, clad in brown, running about with will-o'-the-wisp lanterns. Their movements were swift and perfectly noiseless,--they leaped, jumped and twirled like little gnomes over flowerbeds, under shrubberies, and along the edges of paths and terraces, many of them climbing trees with the rapidity and agility of monkeys, and wherever they went they left behind them a trail of brilliant light. Soon, by their efforts, all the grounds were illuminated with a magnificence that could not have been equalled even by the historic fêtes at Versailles,--tall oaks and cedars were transformed to pyramids of fire-blossoms,--every branch was loaded with coloured lamps in the shape of stars,--rockets hissed up into the clear space showering down bouquets, wreaths and ribbons of flame,--lines of red and azure ran glowingly along the grass-borders, and amid the enthusiastic applause of the assembled spectators, eight huge fire-fountains of all colours sprang up in various corners of the garden, while an enormous golden balloon, dazzlingly luminous, ascended slowly into the air and remained poised above us, sending from its glittering car hundreds of gem-like birds and butterflies on fiery wings, that circled round and round for a moment and then vanished. While we were yet loudly clapping the splendid effect of this sky-spectacle, a troop of beautiful girl-dancers in white came running across the grass, waving long silvery wands that were tipped with electric stars, and to the sound of strange tinkling music, seemingly