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I was indebted to the distinction of my manners, to the resonance of my voice, which the president of the administrative council has had a chance to appreciate at the meetings of the Caisse Territoriale, for the privilege of taking part in that sumptuous festivity, where I stood for three hours in the reception-room, amid flowers and draperies, dressed in scarlet and gold, with the majestic bearing peculiar to persons who exert some little authority, and with my calves exposed for the first time in my life, and sent the name of each guest like the report of a cannon into the long line of five salons, a resplendent footman saluting each time with the bing of his halberd on the floor.

The crystalline notes of the bell of the Carmelites mingled with the grave notes of the bell of the Immaculate Conception; and all the joyous bells of the Sisters of Nevers and the Dominicans were jingling together. In this wise, from morning till evening on fine days of festivity, the chimes winged their flight above the house-roofs of Lourdes.

That this man, in his awful condition, hovering on the verge of eternity, should allow himself to be attracted by but it was horrible to contemplate. Nevertheless, a month afterwards, I was returning from a festivity with my intimate friend Smith, my distinguished friend Jobling, my most respectable friend Robinson, and my wittiest friend Jones.

But for these animal observances, you might suppose the whole male portion of the company to be the melancholy ghosts of departed book-keepers, who had fallen dead at the desk: such is their weary air of business and calculation. Undertakers on duty would be sprightly beside them; and a collation of funeral-baked meats, in comparison with these meals, would be a sparkling festivity.

The rest of the company, arrested in their festivity, gasped with vague and smiling wonder; the colonel became purple and gasped. But only for a moment. The next instant he was on his legs, holding the child with one hand, while with the other he described a stately sweep of the table. "My ward Miss Pansy Stannard," he said with husky brevity.

I have read somewhere of an enchanted land, where the inmates walked along voluptuous gardens, and built palaces, and heard music, and made merry; while around, and within, the land, were deep caverns, where the gnomes and the fiends dwelt: and ever and anon their groans and laughter, and the sounds of their unutterable toils, or ghastly revels, travelled to the upper air, mixing in an awful strangeness with the summer festivity and buoyant occupation of those above.

Then a signal was given, and in less than one minute three hundred and fifty paper bags were produced, and three hundred and fifty plates full of oranges, apples, buns, and sweetened breads were emptied into them. The table looked as if a plague of grasshoppers had swept over it. Then each servant presented a number and received a present from the tree, and that ended the festivity.

We are perpetually told of the hazards of war, whatever may be the superiority of our skill or courage; of the certainty of the expenses, the bloodshed, and the hardships, and doubtfulness of the advantages which we may hope from them; and it is daily urged with great vehemence, that peace upon the hardest conditions is preferable to the honour of conquests, and the festivity of triumphs.

Sam had no partner for the cotillon. If Maurice was to be absent from that festivity as it began to seem he might be Penrod needed a male friend to take care of Miss Rennsdale and he believed he saw his way to compel Mr. Williams to be that male friend.

Society in other cities is totally unlike Society in Washington. There it is an interchange of kindliness between households of friends: it is the festivity of happy anniversaries, the union of families in new ties, the cherishing of long acquaintance.