' Fancy Ball.

He had succeeded in making up a party to go in costume. He was always
making up parties, and he had for many years been obsessed by a longing
to dress up.

Harry, in mockery of his passion for everything English, had advised him
to go as an Ancient Briton, with a coat of blue paint. Scorning such
ribald chaff, he had ordered a magnificent costume of chain armour.
Greatly to his satisfaction he had persuaded Hereford Vaughan to go as
Shakespeare, Valentia and Daphne respectively as Portia in scarlet and
Rosalind in green.

A large party were to dine at Van Buren's rooms before the ball. Fancy
dress has the effect of bringing out odd, unexpected little
characteristics in people. For example, Harry, good-looking and a dandy,
quite a romantic type, hated dressing up, and cared nothing whatever
about his costume; while Romer, the sober and serious, enjoyed it
immensely, and appeared to think his appearance of the utmost
importance--almost a matter of life and death.

The women were far less self-conscious in costume than the men, and
cared far less how they looked, probably because women are always more
or less in fancy dress, and it was not so much of a novelty to them.

Valentia had pointed out that Shakespeare, to be quite correct, should
wear ear-rings; so Vaughan called at her house on the way to Van
Buren's, as she had promised to lend him some.

"He won't know how to put them on," said Daphne, drawing on her long
boots. "Probably he hasn't had his ears pierced; you must go and screw
them on for him."

Valentia ran down. Just as she was screwing the long coral and pearl
ear-rings with rather painful energy on to the unfortunate young man's
ears, the servant, with a slight expression of terror that could not be
concealed, announced--

"Mrs. Wyburn."

The situation was really rather comic. Romer's mother, who was going to
a dinner-party in the same street, could not forgo the pleasure of
calling unexpectedly on them at half-past seven, vaguely hoping that it
might be inconvenient to them, and that she would catch them in
something they didn't want her to know--a true mother's instinct. But
not in her wildest dreams had she expected what she saw when she entered
the drawing-room--her daughter-in-law in her red mortar-board, red cloak
and bands, with, apparently, her arms round the neck of a young man in
purple silk stockings and jewelled embroidered gloves with rings outside
them.

Mrs. Wyburn