wore a scarlet coat, a tight fit, laced with gold, with splendid gold
buttons and frogs, the brilliant star of the Order of the Garter, and
the Order of the Golden Fleece, a waistcoat of scarlet cashmere
covered with gold lace, breeches of scarlet kerseymere trimmed with
gold lace; gold buckles, white silk stockings, cocked hat laced with
gold, sword studded with rose diamonds and emeralds.

It is nearly forty years since these resplendent masquers trod the
floors of Buckingham Palace, and if the changes which time has brought
about had been foreseen, if the veil which shrouds the future had been
lifted, what emotions would have been called forth!

Who could have borne to hear that the bright Queen and giver of the
fete would pass the years of her prime in the mournful shade of
disconsolate widowhood? That the pale crown of a premature death was
hovering over the head of him who was the life of her life, the active
promoter and sustainer of all that was good and joyous in that great
household, all that was great and happy in the kingdom over which she
ruled?

Who would have ventured to prophesy that of the royal kindred and
cherished guests, the Prince of Leiningen was to die a landless man,
the Duc de Nemours to spend long years in exile, the Duchesse to be
cut down in the flower of her womanhood? Who would have guessed that
this great nobleman, the head of an ancient house, was to perish by a
miserable accident in a foreign hotel; that his sister, the wife of an
unfortunate statesman, was to be dragged through the mire of a divorce
court; that the treasures of a princely home were to pass away from
the race that had accumulated them, under the strokes of an
auctioneer's hammer? Who could have dreamt that this fine intellect