sses it on and spreads out your train, and you walk right up to His
Excellency; he kisses you on both cheeks, you curtsy, and, at the far
door, two aides-de-camp pick up your train and place it on your arm.'

The girls continued to advance, experiencing the while the nerve
atrophy, the systolic emotion of communicants, who, when the bell rings,
approach the altar-rails to receive God within their mouths.

The massive, the low-hanging, the opulently twisted gold candelabra, the
smooth lustre of the marble columns are evocative of the persuasive
grandeur of a cathedral; and, deep in the darkness of the pen, a vast
congregation of peeresses and judges watch the ceremony in devout
collectiveness. How symmetrical is the place! A red, a well-trimmed
bouquet of guardsmen has been set in the middle of the Turkey carpet;
around the throne a semicircle of red coats has been drawn, and above it
flow the veils, the tulle, the skirts of the ladies-of-honour--they seem
like white clouds dreaming on a bank of scarlet poppies--and the long
sad legs, clad in maroon-coloured breeches, is the Lord-Lieutenant, the
teeth and the diamonds on his right is Her Excellency. And now a
lingering survival of the terrible Droit de Seigneur--diminished and
attenuated, but still circulating through our modern years--this
ceremony, a pale ghost of its former self, is performed; and, having
received a kiss on either cheek, the _debutantes_ are free to seek their
bridal beds in Patrick's Hall.

'Miss Olive Barton, presented by Mrs. Barton!' shouted the Chamberlain.

Olive abandoned her train to the aides-de-camp; she saw their bent
backs, felt their nimble fingers exhibiting this dress whereon Mrs.
Barton and Mrs. Symond had for days been expending all the poetry of
their natures. What white wonder, what manifold marvel of art! Dress of
snow satin, skirt quite plain in front. Bodice and train of white
poplin; the latter wrought with patterns representing night and morning:
a morning made of silver leaves with silver birds fluttering through
leafy trees, butterflies sporting among them, and over all a sunrise
worked in gold and silver thread; then on the left side the same sun
sank amid rosy clouds, and there butterflies slept with folded wing, and
there birds roosted on bending boughs; veils of silver tissue softened
the edges of the train, silver stars gleamed in the corn-coloured hair,
the long hands, gloved with white undressed kid, carried a silver