ou could listen, like any one else, and not interrupt with
remarks that distort all one's ideas"--Then, as he persisted in his
silence, she relented still further. "Why, of course, as you say, you
will have to know it in the end. But I can tell you, to begin with,
Owen, that it's nothing you can do anything about, or take hold of in
any way. Whatever it is, it's done and over; so it needn't distress you
at all."

"Ah, I've known some things done and over that distressed me a great
deal," he suggested.

"The princess wasn't so very young, after all," said Mrs. Elmore, as if
this had been the point in dispute, "but very fat and jolly, and very
kind. She wasn't in costume; but there was a young countess with her,
helping receive, who appeared as Night,--black tulle, you know, with
silver stars. The princess seemed to take a great fancy to Lily,--the
Russians always _have_ sympathized with us in the war,--and all the time
she wasn't dancing, the princess kept her by her, holding her hand and
patting it. The officers--hundreds of them, in their white uniforms and
those magnificent hussar dresses--were very obsequious to the princess,
and Lily had only too many partners. She says you can't imagine how
splendid the scene was, with all those different costumes, and the rooms
a perfect blaze of waxlights; the windows were battened, so that you
couldn't tell when it came daylight, and she hadn't any idea how the
time was passing. They were not all in masks; and there didn't seem to
be any regular hour for unmasking. She can't tell just when the supper
was, but she thinks it must have been towards morning. She says Mr.
Hoskins got on capitally, and everybody seemed to like him, he was so
jolly and good-natured; and when they found out that he had been wounded
in the war, they made quite a belle of him, as he called it. The
princess made a point of introducing all the officers to Lily that came
up after they unmasked. They paid her the greatest attention, and you
can easily see that she was the prettiest girl there."

"I can believe that without seeing," said Elmore, with magnanimous pride
in the loveliness that had made him so much trouble. "Well?"

"Well, they couldn't any of them get the hang, as Mr. Hoskins said, of
the character she came in, for a good while; but when they did, they
thought it was the best idea there: and it was all _your_ idea, Owen,"
said Mrs. Elmore, in accents of such tender pride that he knew she must