of the old-young woman with the weird
gentility, which was of a faded black satin, and
languished through the dance with a lovelorn
affability and condescension to the force
of circumstances, in itself a faint reflection of
all Bedlam.

Among those seated on the forms, the usual
loss of social habits and the usual solitude in
society, were again to be observed. It was
very remarkable to see how they huddled
together without communicating; how some
watched the dancing with lack-lustre eyes,
scarcely seeming to know what they watched;
how others rested weary heads on hands, and
moped; how others had the air of eternally
expecting some miraculous visitor who never
came, and looking out for some deliverances
that never happened. The last figure of the
set danced out, the women-dancers instantly
returned to their station at one end of the
gallery, the men-dancers repaired to their
station at the other; and all were shut up
within themselves in a moment.

The dancers were not all patients. Among
them, and dancing with right good will,
were attendants, male and female — pleasant-
looking men, not at all realising the conventional
idea of " keepers"—and pretty women,
gracefully though not at all inappropriately
dressed, and with looks and smiles as sparkling
as one might hope to see in any dance in any
place. Also, there were sundry bright young
ladies who had helped to make the Christmas
tree; and a few members of the resident-
officer's family; and, shining above them all,
and shining everywhere, his wife; whose clear
head and strong heart Heaven inspired to have
no Christmas wish beyond this place, but to
look upon it as her home, and on its inmates
as her afflicted children. And may I see as
seasonable a sight as that gentle Christian
lady every Christmas that I live, and leave its
counterpart in as fair a form in many a nook
and corner of the world, to shine, like a star
in a dark spot, through all the Christmases to
come!

The tree was in a bye room by itself, not
lighted yet, but presently to be displayed in
all its glory. The porter of the Institution,
a brisk young fellow with no end of dancing
in him, now proclaimed a song. The announcement
being received with loud applause, one
of the dancing sisterhood of attendants sang
the song, which the musicians accompanied.
It was very pretty, and we all applauded to
the echo, and seemed (the mad part of us I
mean) to like our share in the applause
prodigiously, and to take it as a capital point, that
we were led by the popular porter. It was
so great a success that we very soon called
for another song, and then we danced a
country-dance, (Porter perpetually going
down the middle and up again with
Weird-gentility) until the quaint pictures of the
Founders, hanging in the adjacent committee-
chamber, might have trembled in their frames.

The moment the dance was over, away the
porter ran, not in the least out of breath, to
help light up the tree. Presently it stood in
the centre of its room, growing out of the
floor, a blaze of light and glitter; blossoming
in that place (as the story goes of the American
aloe) for the first time in a hundred years.
O shades of Mad Doctors with laced ruffles
and powdered wigs, O shades of patients who
went mad in the only good old times to be mad
or sane in, and who were therefore physicked,
whirligigged, chained, handcuffed, beaten,
cramped, and tortured, look from

Wherever in your sightless substances,
You wait—

on this outlandish weed in the degenerate
garden of Saint Luke's!

To one coming freshly from outer life,
unused to such scenes, it was a very sad and
touching spectacle, when the patients were
admitted in a line, to pass round the lighted
tree, and admire. I could not but remember
with what happy, hopefully-flushed faces, the
brilliant toy was associated in my usual
knowledge of it, and compare them with the
worn cheek, the listless stare, the dull eye
raised for a moment and then confusedly
dropped, the restless eagerness, the moody
surprise, so different from the sweet expectancy
and astonishment of children, that
came in melancholy array before   me. And
when the sorrowful procession was closed by
"Tommy," the favourite of the house, the
harmless old man, with a giggle and a chuckle
and a nod for every one, I think I would
have rather that Tommy had charged at the
tree like a Bull, than that Tommy had been, at
once so childish and so dreadfully un-childlike.

We all went out into the gallery again
after this survey, and the dazzling fruits of
the tree were taken from their boughs, and
distributed. The porter, an undeveloped genius
in stage-management and mastership of
ceremonies, was very active in the distribution,
blew all the whistles, played all the trumpets,
and nursed all the dolls. That done, we
had a wonderful concluding dance,
compounded of a country dance and galopade,
during which all the popular couples were
honored with a general clapping of hands, as
they galoped down the middle; and the
porter in particular was overwhelmed with
plaudits. Finally, we had God Save the
Queen, with the whole force of the company;
solo parts by the female attendant with the
pretty voice who had sung before; chorus
led, with loyal animation, by the porter.
When I came away, the porter, surrounded
by bearers of trays, and busy in the midst
of the forms, was delivering out mugs and
cake, like a banker dealing at a colossal
round game. I daresay he was asleep before
I got home; but I left him in that stage of
social briskness which is usually described
among people who are at large, as  "beginning
to spend the evening ."

Now, there is doubtless a great deal that is