nts was
quite different.

Joseph Joy stared, wondered, and shook his head.

Miss Tabby sighed, whimpered, and moralized.

"I feel as if I had been drinking for a week, and had a lively sort of a
nightmare! Here comes another ghoul, in a false face and black gown and
hood! Now, how is anybody to tell what it is? Whether it is a tall woman
or a short man? Gentleman, or lady, if your honor pleases?" said Joseph
Joy, addressing himself to a black domino that just then came up.

"Gentleman," answered the unknown.

"Pass to the right, then, if you please, sir! Here Alick, show this
gentleman in the black shroud to the gentlemen's dressing-room."

A trembling darky came forward and took charge of this terrific
personage.

"Ah, my goodness! no good will ever come of this!" sighed Miss Tabby.

"No good? Yes there will too!" answered Joseph Joy, who was fond of
contradiction. "All these bare-necked, bare-armed, and bare-legged
people will get the pleurisy and be laid on the flat of their backs for
three months, when they will have the opportunity of meditating on the
iniquity of their ways! And won't that be good?"

"Yes, it will; and I hope it will be sanctified to their souls," sighed
Miss Tabitha.

"And now here comes another bogie! Gentleman, or lady, please?" politely
inquired the usher, as a red domino approached.

"Lady," softly murmured the domino.

"Pass the lady on to your maids, Miss Winterose! And here's another that
certainly belongs to your department too! And another, and another, and
a whole dozen of them!" exclaimed Mr. Joy, as a troupe of bayaderes,
gipsies, peasants, court ladies, et caetera, filed up.

All these Miss Winterose passed on to Delia, with directions to show
them to the ladies' dressing-rooms. And then she turned to Mr. Joy with
a deep sigh, whimpering:

"Ah! Joseph, where do all these people expect to die when they go to?
I--I mean, to go to when they die?"

"They don't trouble themselves about that, I reckon," said contradictory
Joe.

"Ah! but it is written that we shall not make to ourselves the likeness
of anything that is in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath, or in
the waters under the earth. And here are all these people making of
themselves--" Miss Tabby stopped and snivelled, and then stopped again
to wipe a tear from the tip of her nose.

"Well, what?" demanded antagonistic Joe. "What are these people making
of themselves? Nothing that breaks the first comman