that night the ice of the lake, glimmering in the
moonlight, was like a marble floor, and they had begun to dance and
skate on it before it was dark.

Prior's Park, or, more properly, the surrounding district of
Holinwall, was a country seat that had become a suburb; having once
had only a dependent village at its doors, it now found outside all
its doors the signals of the expansion of London. Mr. Haddow, who
was engaged in historical researches both in the library and the
locality, could find little assistance in the latter. He had already
realized, from the documents, that Prior's Park had originally been
something like Prior's Farm, named after some local figure, but the
new social conditions were all against his tracing the story by its
traditions. Had any of the real rustics remained, he would probably
have found some lingering legend of Mr. Prior, however remote he
might be. But the new nomadic population of clerks and artisans,
constantly shifting their homes from one suburb to another, or their
children from one school to another, could have no corporate
continuity. They had all that forgetfulness of history that goes
everywhere with the extension of education.

Nevertheless, when he came out of the library next morning and saw
the wintry trees standing round the frozen pond like a black forest,
he felt he might well have been far in the depths of the country.
The old wall running round the park kept that inclosure itself still
entirely rural and romantic, and one could easily imagine that the
depths of that dark forest faded away indefinitely into distant
vales and hills. The gray and black and silver of the wintry wood
were all the more severe or somber as a contrast to the colored
carnival groups that already stood on and around the frozen pool.
For the house party had already flung themselves impatiently into
fancy dress, and the lawyer, with his neat black suit and red hair,
was the only modern figure among them.

"Aren't you going to dress up?" asked Juliet, indignantly shaking at
him a horned and towering blue headdress of the fourteenth century
which framed her face very becomingly, fantastic as it was.
"Everybody here has to be in the Middle Ages. Even Mr. Brain has put
on a sort of brown dressing gown and says he's a monk; and Mr.
Fisher got hold of some old potato sacks in the kitchen and sewed
them together; he's supposed to be a monk, too. As to the prince,
he's perfectly glorious, in great cr