ndred
people in blanket-suits gave the effect of a peripatetic rainbow
against the white snow. For the "Arctic Cremorne" the rinks were all
fringed with coloured fairy-lamps; the curling-rink and the tea-room
above it were also outlined with innumerable coloured electric bulbs,
and festoons of Japanese lanterns were stretched between the fir trees
in all directions. At the top of the toboggan slides powerful arc-lamps
blazed, and a stupendous bonfire roared on a little eminence. The
effect was indescribably pretty, and it was pleasant to reflect how man
had triumphed over Nature in being able to give an outdoor evening
party in mid-winter with the thermometer below zero. The gleaming
crystals of snow reflecting the coloured lamps; the Bengal lights
staining the white expanse crimson and green, and silhouetting the
outlines of the fir trees in dead black against the burnished steel of
the sky; the crowd of guests in their many-coloured blanket-suits, made
a singularly attractive picture, with a note of absolute novelty in it;
and the crash of the military band, the merry whirr of the skates, and
the roar of the descending toboggans had something extraordinarily
exhilarating about them in the keen, pure air. The supper-room always
struck me as being pleasingly unconventional. Supper was served in the
long, covered curling-rink, where the temperature was the same as that
of the open air outside, so there was a long table elaborately set out
with silver-branched candlesticks and all the Governor-General's fine
collection of plate, but the servants waited in heavy fur-coats and
caps. Of course no flowers could be used in that temperature, so the
silver vases held branches of spruce, hemlock, and other Canadian firs.
The French cook had to be very careful as to what dishes he prepared,
for anything with moisture in it would freeze at once; meringues, for
instance, would be frozen into uneatable cricket-balls, and tea,
coffee, and soup had to simmer perpetually over lamps. One so seldom
has a ball-supper with North Pole surroundings. We had a serious
toboggan accident one night owing to the stupidity of an old Senator,
who insisted on standing in the middle of the track, and the
Aides-de-Camps' room was converted into an operating theatre, and
reeked with the fumes of chloroform. The young man had bad concussion,
and was obliged to remain a week at Rideau Hall, whilst the poor girl
was disfigured for life.

Whilst on the subj