I think I kept my determination bravely from that hour, but others must judge of this for me.  We are not gods, to say to the tide of feeling, “Thus far, and no farther shalt thou come.”  We are only mortal Canutes at best, to lift back our chairs as the tide advances, and seat ourselves securely thereon beyond the surf.  We all remember how it fared with the quaint old monarch and moralist when he tried the plan of the immortals, and commanded the sea to obey him—­we perish if we arrogate too much when the surges sweep around us; but we can, we must avoid them if we hope to escape their force, and plant ourselves beyond them firmly on the shore.

Evelyn’s fancy ball was a magnificent affair, and a complete success, as the word goes.  She chose to call it my debut party, but I never felt that it was so, or that I was more than any other guest.  I would not have chosen a fancy dress for my first appearance, and she certainly was the queen of the occasion.

She was dressed as Aurora, in exquisite, fleecy gauze draperies of white, azure, and rose color, so artistically arranged as irresistibly to remind the observer of those delicate, transparent tints of morning that greet the rising sun.  On her brow was a diadem of opals and diamonds arranged in a crescent form, from beneath which, her fleecy white veil flowed backward to the hem of her garments like a mist of the early day-spring; a rosy exhalation of the dawn enveloping but not obscuring the radiance of her raiment, over which dew-drops seemed to have been shed by the lavish hand of wakening Nature.

Her face, so fair as to gain from this marble-like radiance its chief characteristic, was delicately tinted to-night on either cheek so as to emulate the early blushes of Aurora.  Her colorless hair, of a tint so neutral as to defy description, curling in light spiral ringlets so as to drop profusely on her bosom, had been richly powdered with gold-dust for this occasion, and glistened like the sunlight, or, to fall in my comparison, the tresses of Lucretia Borgia, as her historians portray them.

Nothing could be more refined, more refulgent, more ethereal, than her whole appearance, nor had I ever seen the light-blue eyes so clear and brilliant, the thin, writhing lips so scarlet and smiling, the pearly teeth so glistening by contrast with the first, as on this occasion.

Her arms and neck, which wanted contour, and yet were of snowy whiteness, were skillfully draped in her many-colored robe so as to cover all defects; and a chaplet of pearls, mingled with diamonds, concealed the slight prominence of the collar-bones, and descended low on the white and well-veiled bosom.  Every eye was turned on her with admiration, and the low murmur that followed her through the halls she trod so proudly, proclaimed her triumph far more loudly than more open flattery could have done.

“You, too, look well to-night, in your black-velvet robe and diamonds, Miriam, better than I have ever seen you!” said a low voice in my ear, as I echoed the passing praises lavished on Evelyn’s beauty by one of her admirers.  “It is scarcely a fancy costume though, after all.”