but merely threw over his shoulders a short
silk domino.

On his arm leaned Mme. Fauvel, _nee_ Valentine de la Verberie, bowing
and gracefully greeting her numerous friends.

She had once been remarkably beautiful; and to-night the effect of the
soft wax-lights, and her very becoming dress, half restored her
youthful freshness and comeliness. No one would have supposed her to be
forty-eight years old.

She wore a dress of the later years of Louis the Fourteenth's reign,
magnificent and severe, of embroidered satin and black velvet, without
the adornment of a single jewel.

She looked so graceful and elegant in this court dress and powdered
hair, that some ill-natured gossips said it was a pity to see a real
La Verberie, so well fitted to adorn a queen's drawing-room, as all her
ancestors had done before her, thrown away upon a man whom she had only
married for his money.

But Madeleine was the object of universal admiration, so dazzlingly
beautiful and queenlike did she appear in her costume of maid of honor,
which seemed to have been especially invented to set forth her beautiful
figure.

Her loveliness expanded in the perfumed atmosphere and soft light of
the ball-room. Never had her hair looked so black, her complexion so
exquisite, or her large eyes so brilliant.

Having greeted the hosts, Madeleine took her aunt's arm, while M. Fauvel
wandered through the rooms in search of the card-table, the usual refuge
of bored men, when they are enticed to the ball-room by their womankind.

The ball was now at its height.

Two orchestras, led by Strauss and one of his lieutenants, filled the
two mansions with intoxicating music. The motley crowd whirled in the
waltz until they presented a curious confusion of velvets, satins,
laces, and diamonds. Almost every head and bosom sparkled with jewels;
the palest cheeks were rosy; heavy eyes now shone like stars; and the
glistening shoulders of fair women were like drifted snow in an April
sun.

Forgotten by the crowd, the clown had taken refuge in the embrasure of
a window, and seemed to be meditating upon the gay scene before him; at
the same time, he kept his eye upon a couple not far off.

It was Madeleine, dancing with a splendidly dressed doge. The doge was
the Marquis de Clameran.

He appeared to be radiant, rejuvenated, and well satisfied with the
impression he was making upon his partner; at the end of a quadrille
he leaned over her, and whispered compliment