in truth, be over, and the tired holiday-makers would go home to
their beds.

A few hours more remained, and the revelry was at its height, and
the dancers danced as knowing that their minutes were numbered.

There had been a ball on the previous night at the Palazzo of the
Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare. But the scene at the Circolo was a
much more brilliant, animated, and varied one than that of the night
before at the Castelmare palace. The Marchese Lamberto was the
wealthiest noble in Ravenna, and--putting aside his friend the
Cardinal Legate--was, in many other respects, the first and foremost
man of the city. He was a bachelor of some fifty years old. And
bachelors' houses and bachelors' balls have the reputation of
enjoying the privilege of a somewhat freer and more unreserved
gaiety and jollity than those of their neighbours more heavily
weighted with the cares and responsibilities of life. But such was
not the case at the Palazzo Castelmare. Presided over on such
occasions as that of the great annual Carnival ball by a widowed
sister-in-law of the Marchese, the Castelmare palace was the most
decorous and respectable house, as its master was the most decorous
and respectable man, in Ravenna.

Not that it was a dull house. The Marchese Lamberto, though a grave
and dignified personage in the eyes of the "jeunesse doree" of
Ravenna, was looked up to as one of the best loved, as well as most
respected, men in the city. And there was not a member of the
"society" who would not have been sadly hurt at not being invited to
the great annual Carnival ball at the Castelmare palace. But the
same degree of laissez aller jollity would not have been "de mise"