up dresses as they hurried out of the publicity of the street. The
dressing-rooms where the spheroidal bundles were undergoing
metamorphose became buzzing centres of life.

Before the long pier glasses there was a marshalling of every charm,
real or borrowed (more correctly bought), in view of the hoped-for
conquests of the evening, and it would seem that not a few went on the
military maxim that success is often secured by putting on as bold a
front, and making as great and startling display, as possible. But as
fragrant, modest flowers usually bloom in the garden with gaudy,
scentless ones, so those inclined to be _bizarre_ made an excellent
foil for the refined and elegant, and thus had their uses. There is
little in the world that is not of value, looking at it from some
point of view.

In another apartment the opposing forces, if we may so style them,
were almost as eagerly investing themselves in--shall we say charms
also? or rather with the attributes of manhood? At any rate the
glasses seem quite as anxiously consulted in that room as in the
other. One might almost imagine them the magic mirrors of prophecy in
which anxious eyes caught a glimpse of coming fate. There were certain
youthful belles and beaux who turned away with open complacent smiles,
vanity whispering plainly to them of noble achievement in the parlors
below. There were others, perhaps not young, who turned away with
faces composed in the rigid and habitual lines of pride. They were
past learning anything from the mirror, or from any other source that
might reflect disparagingly upon them. Prejudice in their own favor
surrounded their minds as with a Chinese wall. Conceit had become a
disease with them, and those faculties that might have let in
wholesome, though unwelcome, truth were paralyzed.