the carefully guarded bounds of the women's apartments. At length the
long season of pleasure came to a harmonious close. No outbreak of the
people of Shushan, no rising of distant provinces, no plotting of
high-born traitors had marred the festal pomp. Yet the season of
pleasure is always a period of trial, and the seeds of remorse and
repentance are almost invariably sown in the hours of gayety. Amid all
this brightness, a dark cloud hung over Ahasuerus. On the seventh and
last day, when the heart of the king was merry--when he had forgotten
royalty dignity and personal decorum, by sitting too long at the festive
board--excited by pride and vanity, and stimulated by wine, he resolved
to dazzle the eyes of the people by presenting to their admiration a
gem, brighter and more lovely than any which sparkled in the royal
crown. To verify his loud boasts of her matchless charms, he sent his
chamberlain to bid the queen array herself in that royal attire which
befitted her state while it displayed her beauty and proclaimed her
rank, and thus present herself, that the assembled multitudes might
admire her loveliness and confess his happiness.

In Western lands, and in modern days, this command would convey no idea
of shame or impropriety. The royal consort and her train of fair
attendants have often graced the presence and shared the honours of the
monarch and his court, and added refinement to luxury. But no offer
could be more opposed to all ideas of Eastern delicacy and
propriety--more degrading to the woman, or more offensive to the queen.

By thus unveiling herself before the crowd, she would sink herself to
the level of the most unworthy of her sex--while the violation of an
established usage, in the time of such excitement and excess, might lead
to the wildest disorder, and the queen might be exposed to every insult
from crowds maddened by wine and ripe for disorder; while the monarch