ve been postponed--Her Grace of Richmond was willing
that it should be so. How could men and women dance, flirt and make
merry while Death was already reckoning the heavy toll of brave young
lives which she would demand on the morrow? But who knows England who
has not seen her at the hour of danger?

Put off the ball? why! perish the thought! The timid townsfolk of
Brussels or the ladies of the French royalist party who were in great
numbers in the city might think there was something amiss. What was
amiss? some gallant young men would go on the morrow and conquer or die
for England's honour! there's nothing amiss in that! Why put off the
ball? The girls would be disappointed--they who like to dance--why
should they be deprived of partners, just because some of them would lie
dead on the battlefield to-morrow?

Open your salons, Madame la Duchesse! The soldiers of Britain will come
to your ball. They will laugh and dance and flirt to-night as bravely as
they will die to-morrow.

The sands of life are running low for them: in a few hours perhaps a
bullet, a bayonet, who knows? will cut short that merry laugh, still the
gallant heart that even now takes a last and fond farewell from a
blushing partner, after a waltz, in a sweet-scented alcove with sounds
of soft and distinct music around that stills the coming cannon's roar.

Gordon and Lancey, Crawford and Ponsonby and Halkett, aye! and
Wellington too! What immortal names are spoken by the flunkeys to-night
as they usher in these brave men into the hostess' presence. The
ballroom is brilliantly illuminated with hundreds of wax candles, the
women have put on their pretty dresses, displaying bare arms and
dazzling shoulders; the men are in showy uniforms, glittering with stars
and decorations: Orange, Brunswick, Nassau, English, Belgian, Scottish,
French, all are there gay with gold and silver braid.

The confusion of tongues is greater surely than round the tower of
Babel. German and French and English, Scots accent and Irish brogue,
pedantic Hanoverian and lusty Brunswick tones, all and more of these
varied sounds mingle with one another, and half-drown by their clamour
the sweet strains of the Viennese orchestra that discoursed dreamy
waltzes from behind a bower of crimson roses; whilst ponderous Flemish
wives of city burgomasters gaze open-mouthed at the elegant ladies of
the old French noblesse, and shy Belgian misses peep enviously at their
more self-reliant Eng