ests sought their reflections in the pier-glasses
and rejoiced to catch their own glitter amid the glittering crowd.
What a pity that one of the stately mirrors has not preserved a
picture of the scene which by the very traits that were so transitory
might have taught us much that would be worth knowing and remembering!

Would, at least, that either painter or mirror could convey to us some
faint idea of a garment already noticed in this legend--the Lady
Eleanore's embroidered mantle, which the gossips whispered was
invested with magic properties, so as to lend a new and untried grace
to her figure each time that she put it on! Idle fancy as it is, this
mysterious mantle has thrown an awe around my image of her, partly
from its fabled virtues and partly because it was the handiwork of a
dying woman, and perchance owed the fantastic grace of its conception
to the delirium of approaching death.

After the ceremonial greetings had been paid, Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe
stood apart from the mob of guests, insulating herself within a small
and distinguished circle to whom she accorded a more cordial favor
than to the general throng. The waxen torches threw their radiance
vividly over the scene, bringing out its brilliant points in strong
relief, but she gazed carelessly, and with now and then an expression
of weariness or scorn tempered with such feminine grace that her
auditors scarcely perceived the moral deformity of which it was the
utterance. She beheld the spectacle not with vulgar ridicule, as
disdaining to be pleased with the provincial mockery of a
court-festival, but with the deeper scorn of one whose spirit held
itself too high to participate in the enjoyment of other human souls.
Whether or no the recollections of those who saw her that evening were
influenced by the strange events with which she was subsequently
connected, so it was that her figure ever after recurred to them as
marked by something wild and unnatural, although at the time the
general whisper was of her exceeding beauty and of the indescribable
charm which her mantle threw around her. Some close observers, indeed,
detected a feverish flush and alternate paleness of countenance, with
a corresponding flow and revulsion of spirits, and once or twice a
painful and helpless betrayal of lassitude, as if she were on the
point of sinking to the ground. Then, with a nervous shudder, she
seemed to arouse her energies, and threw some bright and playful yet
h