ere_ of diamonds, dripping,
dancing, flashing like water that was perpetually flowing, and yet, by
some enchantment, arrested in its flow in glorious suspension. Set in
the middle of the enchanted water was such a breast-knot of rare,
exquisite, uncannily grotesque orchids as no queen or princess had ever
been seen to wear in St. Ambrose's. Indeed, it might have suited the
Queen of Sheba.

Miss Vanhansen announced that she wore her war-paint to do honour to the
Thirlwall Hall play, and to May Millar, whom she had forgiven, for
rancour never yet dwelt in the Yankee breast. "Alcestis" was a little
long, and "real right down funny," as her Aunt Sally would have said,
though it was a tragedy, and she, Keturah Vanhansen, did not understand
a word of it, notwithstanding this was her last year at Thirlwall Hall.
One good joke was the man who was in cats' skins, and carried a kitchen
poker for a club, and was half a head shorter than she was, and she was
not big; they should see her Aunt Abe if they wanted to know what a big
woman was like. Another joke was the sacks for the ladies' frocks, with
holes for the head and feet, and holes for the arms, so nice and simple,
and so graceful; Worth ought to get a hint of the costume. Only it was
not very distinctive, when one regarded the corresponding sacks for the
gentlemen. There was really nothing to mark out the ladies except the
large towels which they wore hanging down their backs, while the
gentlemen had Inverness capes over their sacks, fastened on the
shoulders with Highland brooches. How came the Greeks, in the time of
Euripides, to know about Inverness capes and Highland brooches? She,
Keturah Vanhansen, had been so startled by what she feared might be a
frightful anachronism that all her false hair had fallen off, and she
had been left like one of her Aunt Abe's moulting fowls.

The truth was that, in the matter of hair, nature had favoured Miss
Vanhansen with a peculiarly fine and luxuriant crop, so that she had no
need to apply to art for its help.

But as for May, she saw nothing and heard nothing of the discrepancies
which might mar the ancient story to far less ostentatiously
matter-of-fact and mocking critics than the would-be barbarian from
beyond the herring-pond. The piteous tragedy was enacted in all its
terror and pathos to May. She forgot even to sigh for one of the
original great open-air amphitheatres, with the cloudless blue sky of
Greece overhead, which h