es in the places of the romantic
characters in the drama--Lalla Rookh, the incomparably beautiful
Eastern Princess and Feramorz, the young Prince in disguise, "graceful
as that idol of women, Crishna."

[Illustration: GROVE STREET. Looking toward St. Luke's Church.]

They secretly agreed to go to the masked ball at the Brevoorts' as
their romantic favourites and prototypes. The detailed descriptions in
the book gave them sufficient inspiration. She wore floating gauzes,
bracelets, "a small coronet of jewels" and "a rose-coloured, bridal
veil." His dress was "simple, yet not without marks of costliness,"
with a "high Tartarian cap.... Here and there, too, over his vest,
which was confined by a flowered girdle of Kaskan, hung strings of
fine pearls, disposed with an air of studied negligence."

So they met at the ball and danced together, and I suppose he quoted:

_"Fly to the desert, fly with me,
Our Arab tents are rude for thee;
But, oh! the choice what heart can doubt,
Of tents with love, or thrones without?"_

Obviously she chose the tents with love, for as the clock struck four
they slipped away together and were married!

As Lossing puts it:

"They left the festive scene together at four o'clock in the
morning, and were married before breakfast."

They did not change their costumes, dear things! They wanted the
romantic trappings for their love poem--a love poem which was to them
more enchanting--more miraculous--than that of Lalla Rookh and the
King of Bucharia. I hope they lived happily ever after, like the
brave, young romanticists they were!

In 1835 a hotel was opened on the corner of Eighth Street and Fifth
Avenue, and it was appropriately named for the illustrious family over
the way. The Brevoort House is certainly as historic a pile, socially
speaking, as lower New York has to offer. Arthur Bartlett Maurice says
of it:

"In the old-time novels of New York life visiting Englishmen
invariably stopped at the Brevoort."

Of this hotel more anon, since it has recently become knit into the
fabric of the modern Village.

But a scant two blocks away from the Brevoort stands another hostelry
which is indissolubly a part of New York's growth--especially the
growth of her Artist's Colony. It is the Lafayette, or as many of its
habitues still love to call it--"The Old Martin." This, the first and
most famous French restaurant of New York, needs a special word or
two.