1885 New Guide Hotel Bar Restaurant

THE NEW GUIDE FOR HOTELS, ETC.

474

duction into this country. A magnificent juvenile ball was given at the Hotel X. (an Hotel does not necessarily mean a place of public entertainment, but signifies the large town, or official residence of aristocracy or celebrities on the continent, as the Hotel Grevy, the residence of President Grevy, &c., &c.) Three hundred children were present, and after they had retired, fifty grown up persons who had assisted at the festivities, sat down to dinner. In the salle a manger^ a long row of broad low tables, was placed down the centre of the room. They were draped with fine white napery, which was festooned about every yard and a half with bouquets of charming exotics grouped in the form of floral fans. The apex of the fan was about one inch from the edge of the table. The walls of the room were wreathed with evergreens, made brilliant with myriads of coloured lamps, (oil, float and wick.) The rest of the room was lighted with rice paper lanterns, orna- mented with Japanese designs. The sides of the room were parted off into miniature gardens of exotics, palm groves, arcades and bowers, with tete-a-tete tables and chairs for the tiny dancers. The windows were sylvan bowers, and the corners of the room were turned into mountain scenery of virgin cork, with tiny cascades of water rippling over sheets of tin, artfully inserted amongst the cork, whilst a profusion of common ferns, trifoliate grasses and mosses gave a natural and rural appearance to the whole. A long strip of looking-glass, two and a half feet wide, was placed down the centre of the table, from end to end. It was edged with moss on each side, and covered with scenes ; some representing the lacustrine villages of Switzer- land in the bygone days, others white, pink and blue lilies, like those in the Jardin des Plantes. Artificial they were, of course, but the lotus looked real, and a little nymph of seven tried to coax cher cousin Adolphe to procure her one, and when