Notwithstanding that it had been Miss Lestrange’s audacious proposal that they should go masquerading in the open air, she was a wise young virgin, and she took care before going out to thrust a soft silk handkerchief into the square opening of her dress; the Ladies Sybil and Rosamund followed her example by drawing lace scarfs round their necks and shoulders; it was the young matron who was reprehensibly careless, and who, when the French windows were thrown open, went forth boldly, 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 daylight beginning to tell; the birds were singing and chattering and calling everywhere; and the sweet, pure air of the morning, as it stirred, and no more than stirred, the trembling leaves, brought with it a scent of mignonette that seemed to speak of the coming of June.

Laura, in the person of Lady Adela Cunyngham, had reproached the faithless Damon (who was no other than Mr. Lionel Moore)—­

   “Ungrateful Damon, is it come to this? 
    Are these the happy scenes of promis’d bliss? 
    Ne’er hope, vain Laura, future peace to prove;
    Content ne’er harbors with neglected love.”