all pretty much alike, you scarcely
distinguished the prince from his butcher or his
baker; but in a very short time your eye told
you that there was in the room, as in the world
at large, a most subtle, almost imperceptible
gradation of rank, both conventional and
moral! With the women it was the same;
from the diamond crown of the Queen to the
silver head-gear of the citizen maiden of the
lower class. It was to me a singular, almost
affecting study. But the sentiment soon gave
way to the intensest amusement, as one queer
couple after another passed before us! There
a little fellow, in militia uniform, fairly waltzed
round "a huge whale of a wife," in a heavy
black cotton dress, gorgeous with brilliant
flowers, while her head bore the silver,
swallow-tailed Munich cap; here a
sentimental maiden, in tawny muslin, clung to the
arm of some gigantic crane in regimentals.
The most extraordinary costumes presented
themselves. All the cotton and stuff dresses
danced, while the muslins and satins looked
on. And why not? All the middle-aged,
elderly, nay, old people danced, so at least it
seemed to me, whilst the young looked on.
And why not? I again asked myself—it was
only my taste, not my reason, that objected.
There was the feeble little carpenter, who
keeps a shop, in brilliant red and blue, with
spectacles on nose, and thin, buff-coloured
hair, dancing away with his bony, but good-
natured wife, in black silk. I rather admired
them. I recognised, in various of the military
figures, acquaintances of mine. There, from
that soldier I bought my winter dress, from
that ferocious little fellow a packet of charcoal
that very morning, and there was the
modeller of that beautiful statuette, from
whom I shall make a purchase one of these
days.

I told you that we stood looking on from a
good place which happened to be close to one
of the green lions guarding the steps of the
platform. As Prince Adelbert returned to
the aristocracy, he passed us, and having
danced with Anna at several balls this winter,
and being a sort of acquaintance of Madame
F.'s, he stopped to speak to them. He seemed
very good-tempered, and as he chatted about
the ball, and various other things, he glanced
several times towards me with a smile, as if to
say—"and who is this young lady?" Whereupon
Madame F. introduced me to his Royal
Highness, and his Royal Highness was very
polite indeed, and we two had a little chat.
I tell this, in order that—— may honour me
because I have exchanged words with a prince
of the blood.

Once more, in the course of the evening, the
Court ladies descended from their elevation
and danced a quadrille—the Queen is
excessively fond of dancing, they say—after which,
about ten o'clock, the whole Court again
paraded the room, and then took their departure,
and soon after we followed their
example. Before we left, however, I saw rather
a characteristic bit of Munich Life, the militia
and their partners regaling themselves with
beer and ham in a room adjoining the ball-
room; such a chaos of plumed helmets,
tankards, and plates of ham as there was! And
the ceiling of the room adjoining was painted
with grand allegorical frescoes of Apollo and
the Muses! But I have not yet done. I must
tell you yet of the

MASKED ACADEMY.

"Your Fräulein Cousine has been to ask
you to go with her to the Maskirte Academie
at the Odeon to-night! " exclaimed Madame
Thekla, when I came home about half-past
five last Thursday evening; "she said you
must be there at latest by six, as it will be so
terribly crowded, and she wishes you to call
on her."

All this was impossible; it was then more
than half-past five, and I had not yet dined,
to say nothing of dressing! "Would Madame
Thekla go with me into the gallery?" I
asked.

"Yes, with pleasure, as soon as she had had
her beer," the tea of most Munich women of
her class.

When she had drunk her beer, and I had
dressed, and had a cup of coffee, away we
started. The gallery was crowded to excess,
although it was only just six; and if people
had not been very polite to me, as a foreigner
and a young lady, I should have had no place
at all. However, squeezed up against a pillar
and a poor little hump-backed lad, to whom
of course I was very polite all the evening, for
he had inconvenienced himself for me—I saw
capitally.

The scene of operation was again the large
hall of the Odeon. At one end was erected a
stage, for the performance of a pantomime,
which I soon perceived was to be the amusement
of the evening. Before the proscenium
were seats and music-desks, then came rows
and rows of chairs for the audience, filling
about half the room. In the other portion of
the hall were arranged card-tables.

There were very few people in the room
when we first took our place in the gallery,
so that for the hour preceding the performance
of the pantomime, my amusement was
watching the arrivals. People were to be
masked; at least, such were the directions on
the cards of admission: therefore, I was
considerably disappointed to see the ladies, with
very few exceptions, without masks or
masquerade dresses, only in full evening costume,—
perhaps, however, somewhat more brilliant in
colour than usual. Many children, however, were
in fancy dresses, looking excessively pretty;
one little girl, of about twelve, especially, who
paraded about in extreme grandeur as a
minute Morisco lady. The gentlemen, however,
were all either in fancy dresses or dominoes,
and the effect of those dominoed gentlemen
was, to my eyes, remarkably comic. They
swept along in scarlet, blue, orange, green,