th the driver.

XIII.

THE GRAND DUKE'S BALL.

Oh, my! wasn't that ball-room a sight to see? Seats piled on seats, all
cushioned with red velvet, and one end curving round like a great red
horseshoe, with flags and flowers and shields running below the
bottommost tier; a great swinging balloon of sparkling glass poured its
light, like July sunshine, down on a crowd of people, that looked more
like born angels than human creatures. It fairly made me dizzy to look
at 'em from Cousin Dempster's box-seat, which was right in the end of
the circle.

After a while I got my senses back, and looked out for _him_. He wasn't
there yet, and that gave me a chance to see things. Four more heaps of
glass, that seemed as if they had caught fire, hung in the other end of
the room, and beyond them was a fountain of water, a-sparkling and
a-flashing and a-tinkling in a make-believe garden by moonlight, with
live fish swimming in it, and live flowers blooming in piles and heaps
around it, and make-believe trees. Half running round the room was a
lot of marble posts, with white flower-pots running over with sweetness,
and linked together with running vines, that made you feel yourself
almost out of doors.

All this was splendid; but there was one spot that everybody looked
towards, and I most of all. Three boxes, cushioned with red velvet, were
just chained together with great wreaths of flowers such as I never saw
in a garden; but I knew they were genuine because of the scent, which
was delicious. Banners set full of stars and stripes of red and white
silk, all tangled in with flowers, hung over these boxes, and right in
the centre streamed a white silk banner, on which our old bald eagle and
the black eagles of all the Russias flocked together as sociable as
robins in a nest.

"There he is! There he is!"

I started. I caught my breath, for back of the white flag _he_ stood
with the light a-shining on his beautiful yellow hair, and a smile on
his lips. Oh, how grand, how tall, how gorgeous! Everybody was a-looking
at him. The girls around me--always forward, and _so_ silly--began
twittering together, and looking that way as if he would ever think of
dancing with them. They swarmed around me, as a representative person.
They forgot their own trivialities, and rendered me such homage as
genius commands from commonplace minds.

"You are an author," said they. "You belong to the great aristocracy of
the world. Speak for us.