The Rosebud wore a plaited garb of rose pink, with velvet petals about her waist, and green velvet leaves about her throat.  The costume was so beautiful, and the figure so graceful, to say nothing of the natural rose perfume it exhaled, that every one stopped to admire.

The bell for the cotillion sounded, and when the ribbons were cast to the gentlemen it was the Greek Adonis who caught the blue end.  He would lead.

For his partner he walked up to the saucy milkmaid, and claiming her by right, proudly marched with her on his arm back to the center of the platform.

A murmur of disapproval was heard.  Why had he not chosen Cleopatra?

But Marc Anthony was eagerly waiting, and quickly sprang to the fair charmer’s side.  Antonio, the silent, strode over to the market woman—­the height of incongruity.

A clown somersaulted to the Rosebud.

Night hung back.  She seemed particular with whom she danced, and when a very handsomely proportioned courtier stepped up to her she refused him with a toss of her head.  A star fell from her black tresses, but the answer seemed final, and the courtier walked away.

Finally the music started, and the dancers with it.  How delightful it was to be some one else!  And how splendidly Adonis led!  At each turn where the waltz varied the figures he effected a wonderful change of partners, and it usually happened just when he was saying something most interesting to the young lady.

But this afforded a splendid chance for coquetry—­a very pardonable affectation under a mask.

The little nun was creeping around the platform.  She seemed like a dark spirit in the midst of such merrymaking, almost like a warning of a fate to come.

“Now!” the Rosebud heard her partner whisper as the nun passed.  And the Rosebud had for a partner—­Antonio,

“Who?” Psyche heard the nun ask of the same Antonio.  “Who is it to go to?”

Psyche wondered what it meant.  With a quick move, at the signal for a change, Antonio was whirling off with the nun, and Psyche was left without a partner.

But a few moments later Antonio came back to her.

“I just wanted to see if I could make the little nun dance,” he whispered, “and I did—­all the way off the platform, for she’s gone.”

“She is standing there by the side of Adonis,” replied Psyche directly.  “And she seems to be in the way.”

“Soliciting alms,” almost sneered Antonio.  “That’s her business, I suppose.”

Psyche was glad when the waltz ended, and at the next figure she came in contact with Rosebud.  It was to be a ladies’ bouquet, and Rosebud made the centerpiece, with all the other pretty sprites in a circle about her.  Then the boys, in an outer ring, threw their flower-chained hands into the inner circle, thus each capturing a pretty partner.

The milkmaid fell into Antonio’s arms.  He almost caught her up from the floor.