rope-yarn, or of
some other similar material, saturated with turpentine, and it burned
with a bright, fierce flame until consumed. As the first of these
fiery meteors sailed into the street, a common shout from the boys,
apprentices, and young men, proclaimed that the fun was at hand. It
was followed by several more, and in a few minutes the entire area
was gleaming with glancing light. The whole of the amusement
consisted in tossing the fire-balls with boldness, and in avoiding
them with dexterity, something like competition soon entering into
the business of the scene.

The effect was singularly beautiful. Groups of dark objects became
suddenly illuminated, and here a portion of the throng might be seen
beneath a brightness like that produced by a bonfire, while all the
back-ground of persons and faces were gliding about in a darkness
that almost swallowed up a human figure. Suddenly all this would be
changed; the brightness would pass away, and a ball alighting in a
spot that had seemed abandoned to gloom, it would be found peopled
with merry countenances, and active forms. The constant changes from
brightness to deep darkness, with all the varying gleams of light and
shadow, made the beauty of the scene, which soon extorted admiration
from all in the balcony."

"_Mais, c'est charmant_!" exclaimed Mademoiselle Vielville, who was
enchanted at discovering something like gaiety and pleasure among the
"_tristes Americains_," and who had never even suspected them of
being capable of so much apparent enjoyment.

"These are the prettiest village sports I have ever witnessed," said
Eve, "though a little dangerous, one would think. There is something
refreshing, as the magazine writers term it, to find one of these
miniature towns of ours condescending to be gay and happy in a
village fashion. If I were to bring my strongest objection to
American country life, it would be its ambitious desire to ape the
towns, converting the ease and _abandon_ of a village, into the
formality and stiffness that render children in the clothes of grown
people so absurdly ludicrous."

"What!" exclaimed John Effingham; "do you fancy it possible to reduce
a free-man so low, as to deprive him of his stilts! No, no, young
lady; you are now in a country where if you have two rows of flounces
on your frock, your maid will make it a point to have three, by way
of maintaining the equilibrium. This is the noble ambition of
liberty."

"Annette's f