and without any wrap at all, into the cool air of the dawn. But for a
second, as they stood on the little stone balcony above the steps
leading down to the garden, this group of revellers were struck silent.
The world looked so strange around them. In the mysterious gray light,
that had no sort of kindly warmth in it, the grass of the lawn and the
surrounding trees seemed coldly and intensely green; and cold and
intense, with no richness of hue at all, were the colors of the flowers
in the various plots and beds. Not a bird chirped as yet. Not a leaf
stirred. But in this ghostly twilight the solitary gas lamps were
beginning to show pale; and in the southern heavens the silver sickle of
the moon, stealing over to the west, seemed to be taking the night with
it, and leaving these faintly lilac skies to welcome the uprising of the
new day.

At first, indeed, there was something curiously uncanny--something
unearthly and phantasmal almost--in the spectacle of these figures, the
women in white, the men in black, moving through this wan light; and
their voices sounded strangely in the dead silence; but ere long a soft
saffron tinge began to show itself in the east; one or two scraps of
cloud in the violet skies caught a faint touch of the coming dawn; there
was a more generous tone on the masses of foliage, on the flower-beds,
and on the grass; and now the cheerful chirping of the birds had begun
among the leaves. And what more beautiful surroundings could have been
imagined for the production of any pastoral entertainment? The wide lawn
was bounded on one side by a dense thicket of elms and limes and
chestnuts, and on the other by a tall, dark hedge of holly; while here
and there was a weeping-willow, round the stem of which a circular seat
had been constructed, the pendulous branches enclosing a sort of rustic
bower. As this fantastic performance went forward, the skies overhead
slowly became more luminous; there was a sense of warmth and clear