iday afternoon promenade does in the Luxembourg garden.

If you dine at the Taverne du Pantheon on a Thursday night you will find
that the taverne is half deserted by 10 o'clock, and that every one is
leaving and walking up the "Boul' Miche" toward the "Bullier." Follow
them, and as you reach the place l'Observatoire, and turn a sharp corner
to the left, you will see the facade of this famous ball, illumined by a
sizzling blue electric light over the entrance.

The facade, with its colored bas-reliefs of students and grisettes,
reminds one of the proscenium of a toy theater. Back of this shallow
wall bristle the tops of the trees in the garden adjoining the big
ball-room, both of which are below the level of the street and are
reached by a broad wooden stairway.

The "Bal Bullier" was founded in 1847; previous to this there existed
the "Closerie des Lilas" on the Boulevard Montparnasse. You pass along
with the line of waiting poets and artists, buy a green ticket for two
francs at the little cubby-hole of a box-office, are divested of your
stick by one of half a dozen white-capped matrons at the vestiaire, hand
your ticket to an elderly gentleman in a silk hat and funereal clothes,
at the top of the stairway sentineled by a guard of two soldiers, and
the next instant you see the ball in full swing below you.

[Illustration: (portrait of man)]

There is nothing disappointing about the "Bal Bullier." It is all you
expected it to be, and more, too. Below you is a veritable whirlpool of
girls and students--a vast sea of heads, and a dazzling display of
colors and lights and animation. Little shrieks and screams fill your
ears, as the orchestra crashes into the last page of a galop, quickening
the pace until Yvonne's little feet slip and her cheeks glow, and her
eyes grow bright, and half her pretty golden hair gets smashed over her
impudent little nose. Then the galop is brought up with a quick finish.

"Bis! Bis! Bis! Encore!" comes from every quarter of the big room, and
the conductor, with his traditional good-nature, begins again. He knows
it is wiser to humor them, and off they go again, still faster, until
all are out of breath and rush into the garden for a breath of cool air
and a "citron glace."

And what a pretty garden it is!--full of beautiful trees and dotted with
round iron tables, and laid out in white gravel walks, the garden
sloping gently back to a fountain, and a grotto and an artificial
cascade al