ly a ticket and
a half--the half ticket for the bear; but it being a she-bear and
ladies being admitted at half price, the hurdy-gurdy man won the day.
Everybody laughed and said it was the best joke of the season."

Lord Upperton saw a troubled look upon Miss Newville's face, as if she
had heard quite enough about masquerades.

"The recreations of court life, I would not have you think, Miss
Newville, are masquerades and balls, and nothing else. We have suppers
which are quite different affairs, where we do not try to be what we
are not. After the theatres are out we go to the banquet halls, where
wine and wit flow together. We gossip, sing songs, and flirt with the
Macaroni ladies. The opera girls sing to us if they are not too tipsy,
and we have gay larks till the wagons begin to rumble around Covent
Garden Market, and the greengrocers are displaying their onions and
cabbages for the early morning sale."

"Who are the Macaroni ladies?" Miss Newville asked.

Lord Upperton laughed.

"I don't wonder that you inquire. We call them Macaronies, ladies and
gentlemen alike, who have traveled on the Continent, flirted at
Versailles, in Paris, or in the Palace Barberini in Rome; who have
eaten macaroni in Naples, and who have come home with all the follies,
to say nothing of some of the vices of the nobility of other
countries, in addition to what they had before they started on their
travels. The gentlemen wear their hair in long curls; the ladies
patch and paint their faces. If they haven't a pimple or a wart they
make one. They wear gorgeous dresses. The gentlemen twiddle canes
ornamented with dogs' heads or eagles' beaks, with gold tassels; carry
attar of rose bottles in their gloved hands, and squirt rosewater on
their handkerchiefs. They ogle the ladies through their quizzing
glasses, wear high-heeled slippers, and diddle along on their toes
like a French dancing-master teaching his pupils the minuet. The
ladies simper and giggle and wink at the gentlemen from behind their
fans, and leave you to imagine something they don't say."

Again Lord Upperton saw a troubled look upon Miss Newville's face.

"We have convivial parties," he continued. "If you like cards, you can
try your hand at winning or losing. We play for fifty-pound rouleaux.
There is always a great crowd, and not infrequently you may see ten
thousand pounds on the table. Some play small; others plunge in
regardless of consequences. My young friend, Lor