grave accidents might occur.  The movements of the girls were so ordered that the game appeared almost as much a dance as a conflict; but though there was nothing of unseemly violence, the victory was evidently contested with real earnestness, and with a skill superior to that displayed in the movements of the actual soldiers who have long since exchanged the tasks of warfare for the duties of policemen, escorts, and sentries.  I held Eveena’s hand, the others followed us closely, venturing neither to break from our party without leave nor to ask permission, till, at Eveena’s suggestion, it was spontaneously given.  They then quitted us, hastening, Eunane to seek out her favourite companions of a former season, the others to mingle with the younger girls and share in their play.  We walked on slowly, stopping from time to time to watch the exercises and sports of the younger portion of a community numbering some fifteen hundred girls.  When we entered the hall we were rejoined by Eunane, with one of her friends who still wore the ordinary school costume.  Conversation with or notice of a young lady so dressed was not only not expected but disallowed, and the pair seated themselves behind us and studiously out of hearing of any conversation conducted in a low tone.

The spectacle, as I had anticipated, was to me anything but pleasant.  It reminded me of a slave-market of the East, however, rather than of the more revolting features of a slave auction in the United States.  The maidens, most of them very graceful and more than pretty, their robes arranged and ornamented with an evident care to set off their persons to the best advantage, and with a skill much greater than they themselves could yet have acquired, were seated alone or by twos and threes in different parts of the hall, grouped so as to produce the most attractive general as well as individual effect.  The picture, therefore, was a pretty one; and since the intending purchasers addressed the objects of their curiosity or admiration with courtesy and fairly decorous reserve, it was the known character rather than any visible incident of the scene that rendered it repugnant or revolting in my eyes.  I need not say that, except Eveena, there was no one of either sex in the hall who shared my feeling.  After all, the purpose was but frankly avowed, and certainly carried out more safely and decorously than in the ball-rooms and drawing-rooms of London or Paris.  Of the maidens, some seemed shy and backward, and most were silent save when addressed.  But the majority received their suitors with a thoroughly business-like air, and listened to the terms offered them, or endeavoured to exact a higher price or a briefer period of assured slavery, with a self-possession more reasonable than agreeable to witness.  One maiden seated in our immediate vicinity was, I perceived, the object of Eveena’s especial interest, and, at first on this account alone, attracted my observation.  Dressed with somewhat less ostentatious care and elegance