THE COUNTESS ORSETTI'S BALL.


The ball at Casa Orsetti was much canvassed in Lucca. Hospitality is
by no means a cardinal virtue in Italy. Even in the greatest houses,
the bread and salt of the Arab is not offered to you--or, if offered
at all, appears in the shape of such dangerously acid lemonade or
such weak tea, it is best avoided. Every year there are dances at the
Casino dei Nobili, during the Carnival, and there are veglioni, or
balls, at the theatre, where ladies go masked and in dominoes, but
do not dance; but these annual dissipations are paid for by ticket.
A general reception, therefore, including dancing, supper, and
champagne, _gratis_, was an event.

The Orsetti Palace, a huge square edifice of reddish-gray stone, with
overtopping roof, four tiers of lofty windows, and a broad arched
entrance, or portone, with dark-green doors, stands in the street
of San Michele. You pass it, going from the railway-station to the
city-gate (where the Lucchese lions keep guard), and the road leads
onward to the peaked mountains over Spezia.

On the evening of the ball the entire street of San Michele was hung
with Chinese lanterns, arranged in festoons. Opposite the entrance
shone a gigantic star of gas. The palace itself was a blaze of
light. As the night was warm, every window was thrown open;
chandeliers--scintillating like jeweled fountains--hung from the
ceilings; wax-lights innumerable, in gilded sconces, were grouped upon
the walls; crimson-silk curtains cast a ruddy glare across the street,
and the sound of harps and violins floated through the night air. The