r "Herzogin,"
of an unknown or forgotten principality! How pertinaciously would she
remain standing till some "Durchlaut" was "out of the horizon;" or
how studiously would she retire before the advancing step of some puny
potentate,--a monarch of three huesars and thirty chamberlains! Poor
Peter was but a sorry pupil in this "School of Design." He found it
difficult to associate rank with unwashed faces and unbrushed clothes;
and although he _did_ bow, and flourish his hat, and perform all
the other semblances of respect, he always gave one the idea of
an irreverential Acolyte at the back of a profoundly impressed and
dignified high-priest.

Dalton was far more at his ease when he paraded the rooms with Mrs.
Ricketts on one arm, and Martha on the other, enjoying heartily all the
notice they elicited, and accepting, as honest admiration, the staring
wonderment and surprise their appearance was sure to excite. Mrs.
Ricketts, who had always something geographical about her taste in
dress, had this year leaned towards the Oriental, and accordingly
presented herself before the admiring world of Baden in a richly
spangled muslin turban, and the very shortest of petticoats, beneath
which appeared a pair of ample trousers, whose deep lace frills covered
the feet, and even swept the floor. A paper-knife of silver gilt, made
to resemble a yataghan, and a smelling-bottle, in the counterfeit of
a pistol, glittered at her girdle, which, with the aid of a very well
arched pair of painted eyebrows, made up as presentable a Sultana as one
usually sees in a second-rate theatre. If Dalton's blue coat and tight
nankeen pantaloons----his favorite full-dress costume--did somewhat
destroy the "Bosphorean illusion," as Zoe herself called it, still
more did Martha's plain black silk and straw bonnet,--both types of the
strictly useful, without the slightest taint of extraneous ornament.

Purvis and the General, as they brought up the rear, came also in for
their meed of surprise,--the one lost under a mass of cloaks, shawls,
scarfs, and carpets, and the other moving listlessly along through the
crowded rooms, heedless of the mob and the music, and seeming to follow
his leader with a kind of fatuous instinct utterly destitute of volition
or even of thought A group so singularly costumed, seen every day dining
at the most costly table, ordering whatever was most expensive; the
patrons of the band, and the numerous flower-girls, whose bouquets w