loyalty and our happiness?' The tidings were instantly
conveyed to the royal apartments. The king rose--the court followed. We
entered the salon. Oh, that sight!--so new, so touching, so
indescribable!"

Her voice sank for a moment. She recovered herself, and proceeded--

"The queen leaned on the arm of the king, the dauphin and dauphiness
followed; Madame Elizabeth, that saint on earth if ever there was one,
headed the ladies of the court. All rose at our entrance; we were
received with one acclamation. The sight is still before me. I had seen
all that was brilliant in the courts of Europe. But this moment effaced
them all. The most splendid _salle_ on earth, crowded with uniforms, all
swords drawn and waving in the light, all countenances turned on the
king, all one shout of triumph, loyalty, and joy! Alas! alas! was it to
be the last beat of the national heart? Alas! alas! was it to be the
last flash of the splendour of France; the dazzling illumination of the
_catafalque_ of the Bourbons; the bright burst of flame from the funeral
pile of the monarchy?"

Her voice sank into silence; for the first time unbroken throughout the
room.

At length, to relieve the pause, Mordecai expressed something of a hope
that the royal family slept in peace, for that one night at least.

"I really cannot tell," briskly said the fair narrator. "But I know that
the ladies of the court did not. As the king retired, and we remained in
the opera boxes to amuse ourselves a little with the display, we heard,
to our astonishment, a proposal that the tables should be cleared away,
and the ladies invited to a dance upon the spot. The proposal was
instantly followed by the officers climbing into the boxes, and by our
tearing up our pocket-handkerchiefs to make them cockades. We descended,
and danced loyally till daybreak."

"With nothing less than field-officers, I hope?" said a superb cavalier,
with a superb smile.

"I hope so too," laughed the lady; "though really I can answer for
nothing but that the cotillon was excessively gay--that our partners, if
not the best dancers upon earth--I always honour the _garde du
corps_,"--and she bowed to the captain; "were the most obliged persons
possible."

"Ah, but roturiers, madame!" said a stiff old duke, with a scorn worthy
of ten generations of ribands of St Louis.

"True; it was most melancholy, when one comes to reflect upon it," said
the lady, with an elevation of her alabaster shoulder