ta,
representatives of the society which streamed past them. Madeleine
seized Mr. French by the arm.

"Take me somewhere at once," said she, "where I can look at it. Here! in
the corner. I had no conception how shocking it was!"

Mr. French supposed she was thinking of the queer-looking men and women
who were swarming through the rooms, and he made, after his own delicate
notion of humour, some uncouth jests on those who passed by. Mrs. Lee,
however, was in no humour to explain or even to listen. She stopped him
short:--

"There, Mr. French! Now go away and leave me. I want to be alone for
half an hour. Please come for me then." And there she stood, with her
eyes fixed on the President and his wife, while the endless stream of
humanity passed them, shaking hands.

What a strange and solemn spectacle it was, and how the deadly
fascination of it burned the image in upon her mind! What a horrid
warning to ambition!

And in all that crowd there was no one besides herself who felt the
mockery of this exhibition. To all the others this task was a regular
part of the President's duty, and there was nothing ridiculous about
it. They thought it a democratic institution, this droll a ping of
monarchical forms. To them the deadly dulness of the show was as natural
and proper as ever to the courtiers of the Philips and Charleses seemed
the ceremonies of the Escurial. To her it had the effect of a nightmare,
or of an opium-eater's vision, She felt a sudden conviction that this
was to be the end of American society; its realisation and dream at
once. She groaned in spirit.

"Yes! at last I have reached the end! We shall grow to be wax images,
and our talk will be like the squeaking of toy dolls. We shall all
wander round and round the earth and shake hands. No one will have
any object in this world, and there will be no other. It is worse than
anything in the 'Inferno.' What an awful vision of eternity!"

Suddenly, as through a mist, she saw the melancholy face of Lord Skye
approaching. He came to her side, and his voice recalled her to reality.

"Does it amuse you, this sort of thing?" he asked in a vague way.

"We take our amusement sadly, after the manner of our people," she
replied; "but it certainly interests me."

They stood for a time in silence, watching the slowly eddying dance of
Democracy, until he resumed:

"Whom do you take that man to be--the long, lean one, with a long woman
on each arm?"

"That man," s