.

Being now ready to join the maskers, she slipped a large dark cloak
over her dress, opened the chamber door cautiously to see that the hall
was clear, found it to be so at that moment, and slipped out, glided
down the front stairs, elbowing crowds that were pushing up, and so
passed down to the lower hall, and stole through the multitude that
filled it up, back to the rear door. She passed around the outside of
the house to the front door, and entered with the swarm of new arrivals.
Would the ushers, Joe Joy and Miss Tabby, recognize their lady? That was
the question, and that was the test. She passed up with the rest,
letting her black cloak slip down to reveal her robe and crown of fire.

"Heaven save us! who comes here? It must be a mermaid from the 'lake
that burneth with fire and brimstone for ever and ever.' It's a she,
anyhow, and belongs to your department, thanks be to goodness!"
whispered Joseph Joy, to his companion in duty.

"This way, ma'am, if you please. Delia, pass this lady on to the ladies'
dressing-room," said unconscious Miss Tabby, courtesying and pointing.

And Sybil passed on, smiling to herself to perceive that not even her
old family domestics had recognized her face or form. So, keeping up her
stratagem of being one of the masked guests of the ball, she entered the
large chamber that had been chosen for the ladies' dressing-room and
fitted up with a dozen small dressing-tables and mirrors. Her entrance
created a sensation even among that fantastic crowd, each individual of
which was a wonder in him or herself.

"Oh! look there!" simultaneously whispered twenty masks to forty others,
as they caught sight of her.

"What a marvellous dress! What a splendid creature!"

"What a dazzling costume!"

"She throws us all in the shade."

These were a few of the impulsive ejaculations of admiration that were
passed from one to another, as Sybil flashed through the throng and
stopped before a dressing-table, where she made a pretence of putting a
few finishing touches to her dress.

Then, certain of not having been recognized, and wishing to escape such
close scrutiny in such confined quarters, she joined a group of ladies
who, having completed their own toilets, were just then passing out of
the chamber door into the upper hall, where they were met by their
gentleman escorts.

There was no one to meet Sybil; a circumstance that was not of much
importance, since there were one or two other l