h purple satin, with
embroidered cornice skirts and heavy tassels. On this antique table, and
between the undulating curtains, is a marble statue of a female in a
reclining posture, her right hand supporting her head, her dishevelled
hair flowing down her shoulder. The features are soft, calm, and almost
grand. It is simplicity sleeping, Madame Flamingo says. On the opposite
side of the hall are pedestals of black walnut, with mouldings in gilt,
on which stand busts of Washington and Lafayette, as if they were
unwilling spectators of the revelry. A venerable recline, that may have
had a place in the propylaea, or served to decorate the halls of
Versailles in the days of Napoleon, has here a place beneath the
portrait of Jefferson. This humble tribute the old hostess says she pays
to democracy. And at each end of the hall are double alcoves, over the
arches of which are great spread eagles, holding in their beaks the
points of massive maroon-colored drapery that falls over the sides,
forming brilliant depressions. In these alcoves are groups of figures
and statuettes, and parts of statuettes, legless and armless, and all
presenting a rude and mutilated condition. What some of them represented
it would have puzzled the ancient Greeks to decypher. Madame,
nevertheless, assures her guests she got them from among the relics of
Italian and Grecian antiquity. You may do justice to her taste on living
statuary; but her rude and decrepit wares, like those owned and so much
valued by our New York patrons of the arts, you may set down as
belonging to a less antique age of art. And there are chairs inlaid with
mosaic and pearl, and upholstered with the richest and brightest satin
damask,--revealing, however, that uncouthness of taste so characteristic
of your Fifth Avenue aristocrat.

Now cast your eye upward to the ceiling. It is frescoed with themes of a
barbaric age. The finely-outlined figure of a female adorns the centre.
Her loins are enveloped in what seems a mist; and in her right hand,
looking as if it were raised from the groundwork, she holds gracefully
the bulb of a massive chandelier, from the jets of which a refulgent
light is reflected upon the flowery banquet table. Madame smilingly says
it is the Goddess of Love, an exact copy of the one in the temple of
Jupiter Olympus. Another just opposite, less voluptuous in its outlines,
she adds, is intended for a copy of the fabled goddess, supposed by the
ancients to have t