"The princess wasn't so very young, after all," said Mrs. Elmore, as if this had been the point in dispute, "but very fat and jolly, and very kind. She wasn't in costume; but there was a young countess with her, helping receive, who appeared as Night,—black tulle, you know, with silver stars. The princess seemed to take a great fancy to Lily,—the Russians always have sympathized with us in the war,—and all the time she wasn't dancing, the princess kept her by her, holding her hand and patting it. The officers—hundreds of them, in their white uniforms and those magnificent hussar dresses—were very obsequious to the princess, and Lily had only too many partners. She says you can't imagine how splendid the scene was, with all those different costumes, and the rooms a perfect blaze of waxlights; the windows were battened, so that you couldn't tell when it came daylight, and she hadn't any idea how the time was passing. They were not all in masks; and there didn't seem to be any regular hour for unmasking. She can't tell just when the supper was, but she thinks it must have been towards morning. She says Mr. Hoskins got on capitally, and everybody seemed to like him, he was so jolly and good-natured; and when they found out that he had been wounded in the war, they made quite a belle of him, as he called it. The princess made a point of introducing all the officers to Lily that came up after they unmasked. They paid her the greatest attention, and you can easily see that she was the prettiest girl there."
"I can believe that without seeing," said Elmore, with magnanimous pride in the loveliness that had made him so much trouble. "Well?"
"Well, they couldn't any of them get the hang, as Mr. Hoskins said, of the character she came in, for a good while; but when they did, they thought it was the best idea there: and it was all your idea, Owen," said Mrs. Elmore, in accents of such tender pride that he knew she must now be approaching the difficult passage of her narration. "It was so perfectly new and unconventional. She got on very well speaking Italian with the officers, for she knew as much of it as they did."
Here Mrs. Elmore paused, and glanced hesitatingly at her husband. "They only made one little mistake; but that was at the beginning, and they soon got over it." Elmore suffered, but he did not ask what it was, and his wife went on with smooth caution. "Lily thought it was just as it is at home, and she mustn't dance with any one unless they had been introduced. So after the first dance with the Spanish consul, as her escort, a young officer came up and asked her; and she refused, for she thought it was a great piece of presumption. Afterwards the princess told her she could dance with any one, introduced or not, and so she did; and pretty soon she saw this first officer looking at her very angrily, and going about speaking to others and glancing toward her. She felt badly about it, when she saw how it was; and she got Mr. Hoskins to go and speak to him. Mr. Hoskins asked him if he spoke English, and the officer said No; and it seems that he didn't know Italian either, and Mr. Hoskins tried him in Spanish,—he picked up a little in New Mexico,—but the officer didn't understand it; and all at once it occurred to Mr. Hoskins to say, 'Parlez-vous Français?' and says the officer instantly, 'Oui, monsieur.'"
"Of course the man knew French. He ought to have tried him with that in the beginning. What did Hoskins say then?" asked Elmore impatiently.
"He didn't say anything: that was all the French he knew."
Elmore broke into a cry of laughter, and laughed on and on with the wild excess of a sad man when once he unpacks his heart in that way. His wife did not, perhaps, feel the absurdity as keenly as he, but she gladly laughed with him, for it smoothed her way to have him in this humor. "Mr. Hoskins just took him by the arm, and said, 'Here! you come along with me,' and led him up to the princess, where Lily was sitting; and when the princess had explained to him, Lily rose, and mustered up enough French to say, 'Je vous prie, monsieur, de danser avec moi,' and after that they were the greatest friends."
"That was very pretty in her; it was sovereignly gracious," said Elmore.
"Oh, if an American girl is left to manage for herself she can always manage!" cried Mrs. Elmore.