mittance.

Everybody in Elherthal who was anybody would be at this ball. I had
already been at one like it, as well as at several of the less select
and rougher entertainments, and I found a pleasure which was somewhat
strange even to myself in standing to one side and watching the motley
throng and the formal procession which was every year organized by the
artists who had the management of the proceedings.

The ball began at the timely hour of seven; about nine I enveloped
myself in my domino, and took my way across the road to the scene of the
festivities, which took up the whole three saals of the Tonhalle.

The night was bitter cold, but cold with that rawness which speaks of a
coming thaw. The lamps were lighted, and despite the cold there was a
dense crowd of watchers round the front of the building and in the
gardens, with cold, inquisitive noses flattened against the long glass
doors through which I have seen the people stream in the pleasant May
evenings after the concert or musikfest into the illuminated gardens.

The last time I had been in the big saal had been to attend a dry probe
to a dry concert--the "Erste Walpurgisnacht" of Mendelssohn. The scene
was changed now; the whole room was a mob--"motley the only wear." It
was full to excess, so that there was scarcely room to move about, much
less for dancing. For that purpose the middle saal of the three had been
set aside, or rather a part of it railed off.

I felt a pleasant sense of ease and well-being--a security that I should
not be recognized, as I had drawn the pointed hood of my domino over my
head, and enveloped myself closely in its ample folds, and thus I could
survey the brilliant Maskenball as I surveyed life from a quiet,
unnoticed obscurity, and without taking part in its active affairs.

There was music going on as I entered. It could scarcely be heard above
the Babel of tongues which was sounding. People were moving as well as
they could. I made my way slowly and unobtrusively toward the upper end
of the saal, intending to secure a place on the great orchestra, and
thence survey the procession.

I recognized dozens of people whom I knew personally, or by sight, or
name, transformed from sober Rhenish burger, or youths of the period,
into persons and creatures whose appropriateness or inappropriateness to
their every-day character it gave me much joy to witness. The most
foolish young man I knew was attired as Cardinal Richelieu; the w