This last qualification
proved, it is sad to say, to be the one small merit which the
majority of the ladies willing to accept engagements at the
palace did not possess. Day after day passed on; and the
marquis's steward only found more and more difficulty in
obtaining the appointed number of trustworthy beauties. At last
his resources failed him altogether; and he appeared in his
master's presence about a week before the night of the ball, to
make the humiliating acknowledgment that he was entirely at his
wits' end. The total number of fair shepherdesses with fair
characters whom he had been able to engage amounted only to
twenty-three.
"Nonsense!" cried the marquis, irritably, as soon as the steward
had made his confession. "I told you to get thirty girls, and
thirty I mean to have. What's the use of shaking your head when
all their dresses are ordered? Thirty tunics, thirty wreaths,
thirty pairs of sandals and silk stockings, thirty crooks, you
scoundrel--and you have the impudence to offer me only
twenty-three hands to hold them. Not a word! I won't hear a word!
Get me my thirty girls, or lose your place." The marquis roared
out this last terrible sentence at the top of his voice, and
pointed peremptorily to the door.
The steward knew his master too well to remonstrate. He took his
hat and cane, and went out. It was useless to look through the
ranks of rejected volunteers again; there was not the slightest
hope in that quarter.
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