hat is so busy
there, going backwards and forwards, in her gray cloak?' 'She is one of
my attendants,' said his bride; 'she is to overlook and manage my
waiting-maids and the other girls.' 'How can you bear to have anything
so hideous always at your elbow?' replied Emilius. 'Let her alone,'
answered the young lady; 'God meant the ugly to live as well as the
handsome: and she is such a good, honest creature, she may be of great
use to us.'

On rising from table, everybody pressed round the new husband, again
wished him joy, and urgently begged that he would consent to their
having a ball. The bride too said, breathing a gentle kiss on his
forehead: 'You will not deny your wife's first request, my beloved; we
have all been looking forward with delight to this moment. It is so
long since I danced last, and you have never yet seen me dance. Have you
no curiosity how I shall acquit myself in this new character? My mother
tells me I look better than at any other time.'

'I never saw you thus cheerful,' said Emilius; 'I will be no disturber
of your joys: do just what you please; only let me bargain for nobody
asking me to make myself ridiculous by any clumsy capers.'

'Oh, if you are a bad dancer,' she answered, laughing, 'you may feel
quite safe; everybody will readily consent to your sitting still.' The
bride then retired to put on her ball-dress.

'She does not know,' said Emilius to Roderick, with whom he withdrew,
'that I can pass from the next room into hers through a secret door; I
will surprise her while she is dressing.'

When Emilius had left them, and many of the ladies were also gone to
make such changes in their attire as were necessary for the ball,
Roderick took the young men aside, and led the way to his own room. 'It
is wearing toward evening,' said he, 'and will soon be dark; so make
haste, every one of you, and mask yourselves, that we may render this
night glorious in the annals of merriment and madness. Give your fancies
free range in choosing your characters: the wilder and uglier the
better. Try every combination of shaggy mane, and squinting eye, and
mouth like a gaping volcano; build mountains upon your shoulders, or
fatten yourselves into Falstaffs; and as a whet to your inventions, I
hereby promise a kiss from the bride to the figure that would be the
likeliest to make her miscarry. A wedding is such a strange event in
one's life; the bride and bridegroom are so suddenly plunged, as it were
by