d the sea to obey him--we perish if we arrogate
too much when the surges sweep around us; but we can, we must avoid them
if we hope to escape their force, and plant ourselves beyond them firmly
on the shore.

Evelyn's fancy ball was a magnificent affair, and a complete success, as
the word goes. She chose to call it my _debut_ party, but I never felt
that it was so, or that I was more than any other guest. I would not
have chosen a fancy dress for my first appearance, and she certainly was
the queen of the occasion.

She was dressed as Aurora, in exquisite, fleecy gauze draperies of
white, azure, and rose color, so artistically arranged as irresistibly
to remind the observer of those delicate, transparent tints of morning
that greet the rising sun. On her brow was a diadem of opals and
diamonds arranged in a crescent form, from beneath which, her fleecy
white veil flowed backward to the hem of her garments like a mist of the
early day-spring; a rosy exhalation of the dawn enveloping but not
obscuring the radiance of her raiment, over which dew-drops seemed to
have been shed by the lavish hand of wakening Nature.

Her face, so fair as to gain from this marble-like radiance its chief
characteristic, was delicately tinted to-night on either cheek so as to
emulate the early blushes of Aurora. Her colorless hair, of a tint so
neutral as to defy description, curling in light spiral ringlets so as
to drop profusely on her bosom, had been richly powdered with gold-dust
for this occasion, and glistened like the sunlight, or, to fall in my
comparison, the tresses of Lucretia Borgia, as her historians portray
them.

Nothing could be more refined, more refulgent, more ethereal, than her
whole appearance, nor had I ever seen the light-blue eyes so clear and
brilliant, the thin, writhing lips so scarlet and smiling, the pearly
teeth so glistening by contrast with the first, as on this occasion.

Her arms and neck, which wanted contour, and yet were of snowy
whiteness, were skillfully draped in her many-colored robe so as to
cover all defects; and a chaplet of pearls, mingled with diamonds,
concealed the slight prominence of the collar-bones, and descended low
on the white and well-veiled bosom. Every eye was turned on her with
admiration, and the low murmur that followed her through the halls she
trod so proudly, proclaimed her triumph far more loudly than more open
flattery could have done.

"You, too, look well to-night, in