em styled quite so high as
that. The tone of conversation was light and easy, but at the same
time extremely ceremonious and courtly, and all seemed to be enjoying
themselves in the most delightful sort of a way, which people of,
such distinguished rank, I am told, seldom do. All went merry as a
marriage-bell, and sweetly over the gay jingle of voices rose the sweet,
faint strains of the unseen music.

Suddenly all was changed. The great door of glass and gilding opposite
the throne was flung wide, and a grand usher in a grand court livery
flourished a mighty grand wand, and shouted, in a stentorian voice,

"Back: back, ye lieges, and make way for Her Majesty, Queen Miranda!"

Instantly the unseen band thundered forth the national anthem. The
splendid throng fell back on either hand in profoundest silence and
expectation. The grand usher mysteriously disappeared, and in his place
there stalked forward a score of soldiers, with clanking swords and
fierce moustaches, in the gorgeous uniform of the king's body-guard.
These showy warriors arranged themselves silently on either side of the
crimson throne, and were followed by half a dozen dazzling personages,
the foremost crowned with mitre, armed with crozier, and robed in the
ecclesiastical glory of an archbishop, but the face underneath, to the
deep surprise and scandal of Sir Norman, was that of the fastest young
roue of Charles court, after him came another pompous dignitary, in such
unheard of magnificence that the unseen looker-on set him down for
a prime minister, or a lord high chancellor, at the very least. The
somewhat gaudy-looking gentlemen who stepped after the pious prelate and
peer wore the stars and garters of foreign courts, and were evidently
embassadors extraordinary to that of her midnight majesty. After them
came a snowy flock of fair young girls, angels all but the wings,
slender as sylphs, and robed in purest white. Each bore on her arm a
basket of flowers, roses and rosebuds of every tint, from snowy white to
darkest crimson, and as they floated in they scattered them lightly
as they went. And then after all came another vision, "the last, the
brightest, the best--the Midnight Queen," herself. One other figure
followed her, and as they entered, a shout arose from the whole
assemblage, "Long live Queen Miranda!" And bowing gracefully and easily
to the right and left, the queen with a queenly step, trod the long
crimson carpet and mounted the regal t