When the structure was completed and Leo declared herself perfectly satisfied with the result, it was her uncle who had proposed to celebrate her twenty-fourth birthday by a mask-ball in which every costume should be classic, distinctively Roman or Greek; and where the mulsum dispensed to the guests should be mixed in a genuine Cratera.

He was therefore condemned to be buried alive in one of the huge square blocks of concrete with which the walls of a part of the fortifications were being strengthened. While these things were pending, very different scenes were taking place at the French consulate, for great preparations were going on for a mask-ball which was about to take place there.

The mask-ball was a very great affair indeed when it came off which it did at the country residence of the French consul. The mansion, which was Mauresque in style, was splendidly decorated with flags of various nations, and the skiffa, with its sparkling fountain and graceful palmettas, was a perfect blaze of variegated lamps.