However, it will be a new
experience for you."
And a new experience it decidedly was,--an experience, too, which
brought some strange and perplexing results to Thelma of which she never
dreamed.
She went to the Brilliant, accompanied by Lady Winsleigh and her
husband,--Neville, the secretary, making the fourth in their box; and
during the first and second scene of the performance the stage effects
were so pretty and the dancing so graceful that she nearly forgot the
bewildered astonishment she had at first felt at the extreme scantiness
of apparel worn by the ladies of the ballet. They represented birds,
bees, butterflies, and the other winged denizens of the
forest-world,--and the _tout-ensemble_ was so fairy-like and brilliant
with swift movement, light, and color that the eye was too dazzled and
confused to note objectionable details. But in the third scene, when a
plump, athletic young woman leaped on the stage in the guise of a
humming-bird, with a feather tunic so short that it was a mere
waist-belt of extra width,--a flesh-colored bodice about three inches
high, and a pair of blue wings attached to her fat shoulders, Thelma
started and half rose from her seat in dismay, while a hot tide of color
crimsoned her cheeks.
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