curtains in the archway
and the dancers marched into the sombre room.

The men were dressed as shrouded skeletons, and the women as worms. The
men wore a light flimsy gray robe on which skilful artists had painted
on four sides in deep colours the picture of a human skeleton.

The women wore a curious light robe of cotton fibre which was drawn
over the entire body and gave to each figure the appearance of a huge
caterpillar.

From the high perch of a balcony a sepulchral voice cried:

"The Dance of Death and the Worm!"

The strange figures began to move slowly across the polished floor to
the strains of a ghost-like waltz.

From the corners of the high balconies strange lights flashed,
developing in hideous outlines the phosphorescent colors of the
skeletons and long, fuzzy, exaggerated lines of the accompanying worms.
The effect was thrilling. Every sound save the soft swish of the
ghastly robes and the delicate footfall of ghostly feet ceased. Not a
whisper from a sap-headed youth or a yap from an aged degenerate or a
giggle from a silly woman broke the death-like stillness.

Suddenly the music stopped with a crash. Each ghostly couple, skeleton
and worm, stood motionless. The silvery note of a trumpet called from
the sky. The blinking eyes of the death-heads in the ceiling and on the
walls faded slowly. The figures of the dancers moved uneasily in the
darkness. The trumpet pealed a second signal--the darkness fled, and
the great room suddenly blazed with ten thousand electric lights. The
orchestra struck the first notes of a thrilling waltz, and presto!--in
an instant the women appeared in all the splendour of the most gorgeous
gowns, their bare arms and necks flashing with priceless jewels and
each man, but a moment ago a hideous skeleton, bowed before her in
immaculate evening clothes.

Just at the moment each caterpillar threw to her attendant her
disguise, from the four corners of the vast room were released
thousands of gorgeously tinted butterflies, imported from the tropics
for the occasion. As the dancers glided through the dazzling scene
these wonderfully coloured creatures fluttered about them in myriads,
darting and circling in every direction among the flowers and lights
until the room seemed a veritable fairyland.

A burst of applause swept the crowd, as Nan's radiant figure passed,
encircled by the arm of the leader.

Stuart nodded and clapped his hands with enthusiasm.

A more marvellous