o what end?

A knock on the door announced the arrival of her costume by the hands
of Mrs. Gosnold's personal maid.

"And Mrs. Gosnold says please will you come to her boudoir, miss,
directly you're dressed?"

"Tell her I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

Moderate disappointment waited upon recognition of the character of
her assigned disguise. She had had visions of something very splendid,
something almost barbaric in its richness--had nursed a day-dream of
herself flaunting radiantly through the chiaroscuro of the moonlight
fete like some great jewelled butterfly.

After that vision the modest garb of a Quaker maid seemed something of
a come-down, even though the costumer's conception of a Quakeress had
been considerably influenced by musical comedy standards.

But her disappointment was fugitive. After all, the dress was of
exquisite quality and finish, and it became her wondrous well.
She took from the room the memory of a very fetching figure in a gown
of dove-grey crepe-de-chine, the bosom crossed by glistening bands of
white, the skirt relieved by a little apron of lace and linen, white
bands at wrist and throat, a close-fitting cap of lace covering her
hair, her feet and ankles disclosed discreetly in stockings of
dove-grey silk and suede slippers of the same neutral shade set off by
silver buckles--the whole rendered the more tempting by an almost
jaunty cloak of grey satin lined with white.

With the addition of the mask (which she wore to pass through the
corridor in memory of Mrs. Gosnold's injunction) the effect was quite
positively fascinating.

And that mask proved to be far from superfluous, for when she followed
her knock into the boudoir of her mistress she was thunderstruck to
find nearly two dozen people, men and women, gathered together there,
sitting and standing about in a silence which seemed curiously
constrained, taken in connection with their festival attire. For they
were all in costume and, with the single exception of Mrs. Gosnold,
all masked.

This last was very brilliant in the billowy silken skirts, puffed
sleeves, tight bodice, and wide ruff of Queen Elizabeth, and carried
off well the character of that hot-tempered majesty, making no effort
to disguise the fact that she was deeply wounded and profoundly
agitated.

She sat regally enthroned upon a spindle-shank chair that matched her
escritoire, and betrayed her impatient humour by the quick tapping of
one exquisitely sho