is to be a famous gathering and well
worth your seeing."

I was in a whirl, a stupor, by this time, and obeyed implicitly;
beside, it required such an infinite skill to keep my sword from
swinging between my legs and throwing me down, I had no time to
consider of minor matters. He led the way and I followed meekly as a
lap-dog.

At the great entrance gate we became entangled in a medley of soldiers,
coachmen, torch-bearers and servants coming and going--such a babel of
strange oaths--I wished I were safe again in the quiet of Biloxi. I
pleaded with Jerome to turn again, but he was inexorable.

"I expect to find out something to-night," he explained.

Of this ball I remember nothing but that the slippery floor, in which a
man could see his own face, kept me in deadly fear lest my sword trip
me. Jerome was gay and talkative, pointing out many people of whom I
had heard, but they did not look so great after all.

"For sake of heaven man, wear not so long a face; it is not the funeral
of thy mistress I have brought thee to."

I marveled that so many old ladies should carry such young faces or
perchance their hair had turned gray earlier than was its wont in the
colonies. And, too, they seemed sadly disfigured with boils, for on
the chin or cheek of nearly every one there showed a patch of black
sticking-plaster. Poor things! I sorrowed for them, it was so
humiliating. Verily, I pitied them all, and speculated on the
wonderful compensations of Providence. With all their wealth and rank,
their lordly castles and their jewels, these noble dames could not
purchase that which the humblest serving-maid in Quebec had, and to
spare--a clear skin and sunny locks.

I touched upon these matters to Jerome, but he only laughed
immoderately. He was ever a light-headed young spark who gave no
contemplation to deeper questions than present enjoyment.

Of a sudden my wits almost left me at a terrible outcry from one end of
the great hall, a cry not of human beings but of wild beasts, muffled
and menacing. The dancing, the music, the hum of voices ceased, and a
thick silence as of direst fear fell upon them all. Then there came a
loud crackling and shattering of glass, a woman's scream, the first of
very many. This for aught I know might have been a usual happening at
a ball, I had never been to one before.

I looked for Jerome. He was gone, speeding toward a young lady
surpassing fair, with whom he had been speaking