dio of the Chelsea artist at the moment when the
beneficent lady arrived to put her request to him, and, noticing my
pathetic look, she in her great kindness included me in the invitation.

Deciding on the best costume when there are many hundreds of them, and
they pass before the dazzled eye in a swift procession of couples, is
not easy; and only very remarkable men could perform the task. Women
might find it easier, because they would not be influenced, as one of
our judges obviously was, by the external claims of personal beauty. A
woman would look at the costume and nothing else, make her notes with
scientific precision, and prepare for the next. But when the competitors
are all--or almost all--girls, and most of them pretty and all jolly,
why, how can you expect impartiality, especially in artists, and at any
rate without a struggle? But in spite of the difficulties set up by the
impact of so much charm upon the emotional susceptibilities of at any
rate one judge, the process of selecting a first, second, and third was
accomplished with, I should say--speaking as a calm, detached spectator,
with all my feelings well under control--absolute equity.

The first prize went to a slender lady of whose features I can say
nothing because I never saw them, her Eastern costume including a veil
that covered her face. But it seemed to these not too discerning eyes
that she was otherwise of an attractive shapeliness. As to her, the
judges were unanimous; but when it came to the second they were divided.
The Chelsea judge, again swayed by passion, and possibly recalling old
triumphs in his Latin Quarter days, preferred a French costume; the
other was firm for an Indian. What would have happened I dare not think,
for each was a powerful and determined man, ready to stick at nothing,
had I not, in my cool-headedness, been inspired to suggest tossing up
for it, and the result was that, the coin showing heads, the Indian won,
and the French costume naturally took the third prize. There were then
two prizes to be awarded for the most original costumes, the previous
ones having been for the prettiest costumes, and here the winner was a
jovial lady who with her own hands had transformed herself into an
advertisement for a certain soup powder.

The iron laws of etiquette (or is it finance?) which so cramp the style
of any writer who refers to advertisements forbid me to state what
particular soup powder this was; but according to the h