ly difficult. By an inclination of his forehead he
pointed to two ladies of rank, whose names he mentioned to me, but
with whom I was perfectly unacquainted, seated on the sofas at
different points of the parallelogram. 'When dinner is announced you
will be so good,' he said, 'as to offer your arm to ---- ' (the one)
'and to seat yourself next to ---- ' (the other.) Of course I silently
bowed assent; but while the officer who had spoken to me was giving
similar instructions to other gentlemen, I own I felt a little
nervous, lest, during the polite scramble in which I was about to
engage, like the dog in the fable, grasping at the shadow of the
second lady, I might lose the substance of the first, or _vice versa_.
However, when the doors were thrown open, I very quickly, with a
profound reverence, obtained my prize, and at once confiding to
her--for had I deliberated I should have been lost--the remainder of
the pleasing duty it had been predestined I was to have the honour to
perform, we glided through couples darting in various directions for
similar objects, until, finding ourselves in a formal procession
sufficiently near to the lady in question, we proceeded, at a funereal
pace, towards our doom, which proved to be a most delightful one.
Seated in obedience to the orders I had received, we found ourselves
exactly opposite "le Prince," who had, of course, on his right and
left, the two ladies of highest rank. The table was very richly
ornamented, and it was quite delightful to observe at a glance what
probably in mathematics, or even in philosophy, it might have been
rather troublesome to explain--namely, the extraordinary difference
which existed between forty or fifty ladies and gentlemen standing in
a parallelogram in a drawing-room, and the very same number and the
very same faces, rectilinearly seated in the very same form in a
dining-room. It was the difference between sterility and fertility,
between health and sickness, between joy and sorrow, between winter
and summer; in

William Babington Maxwell (18661938) was a British novelist. He was a son of novelist Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Though nearly 50 years old at the outbreak of the First World War, he was accepted as a lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers and served in France until 1917.

Cyrus Townsend Brady (December 20, 1861 January 24, 1920) was a journalist, historian and adventure writer. His most well-known work is Indian Fights and Fighters. He was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1883. He was also a deacon in the Episcopal church. His first wife was Clarissa Guthrie, who died in 1890. His second wife was Mary Barrett.

Rebecca Sophia Clarke (1833-1906), also known as Sophie May, was an American author of childrens fiction. Using her nieces and nephews as inspiration, she wrote realistic stories about children. She wrote 45 books between 1860 and 1903. The most popular being the Little Prudy books. She lived most of her life in her native town of Norridgewock, Maine, where she lived out her life with her sister, who was also a successful author.