Does it matter by what cunning wiles of pretty pleading and downright demonstrations of the project’s reasonableness we succeeded (for we did succeed) in being allowed to take our fates in our own hands or trust them to our own sure-footedness?  I think not.

  “For when a woman will, she will, you may
  depend on’t.”

But you should have seen the robing!  We are to start at ten, P.M.  Previously we betake ourselves to our chambers, and, entertaining a vague notion that Fashion’s expanse may prove inconvenient, we are looping up our trailing robes in fantastic folds, when a tap at the door.

Voila! a servant with two full suits of new, but coarse, miners’ clothes,—­with a modest intimation from our companions of their advisability,—­in fact, their absolute necessity.  We pause aghast!  Ah! the renewed shouts of laughter from those merry, but more timorous damsels, who, from their secure surroundings,—­those becoming barriers adopted at the dictate of Parisian caprice and retained with feminine pertinacity,—­had poked fun at our forlorn limpness!

This climax of costume is startling, but the laughter rouses our courage.  We stand on the brink of our Rubicon.  Shall trousers deter us from the passage?  Shall a coat be synonymous with cowardice?  No,—­we rise superior to the occasion; we pant to be free; we in-breathe the spirit of liberty, as we don our blouses.  We loop our long tresses under such head-coverings as would drive any artist hatter to despair; to us they prove a weighty argument against hats in general, as we feel their heavy rims press on our tender brain-roofs.  However, when the saucy eyes of Mon Amie look out sparkling from under her begrimed helmet, the effect is not bad; on the contrary, the masquerade is piquant.  No need to mention the ribbons that we knot under our wide, square collars for becomingness, our coquetry “under difficulties,” nor the gauntleted gloves wherewith we protect our hands, nor the daintiness of the little boots that peep from the loose trousers, which have something Turkish in their cut. Mon Amie, with her rosy blushes, reminds me of a jocund miller’s boy;—­as for myself, well, I do not think the Bloomer dress so very bad, after all!

A torch-bearing band have stationed themselves at the doors to bid us god-speed,—­to make merry at our droll masquerade,—­to quiz our odd head-gear,—­to criticize us from head to foot, in short,—­but between all, to offer words of caution.  Then we go out into the starlit, but not over-bright night,—­such a one as is friendly to lovers and to thieves, friendly to religion and to thought, the beloved of sentimentalists, and the adored of this particular group of adventurous miners.  In Indian file, lantern-led, we traverse the narrow, beaten path that leads to one of the openings of the mine.  These are covered by a rough-plank house,—­too much like a shed to merit that pretentious term, which implies something fit to live