Higher and higher it rose, until it reached the zenith.
Pausing a moment there, it then began to slide and lengthen down the southern slope of the sky, lower and lower, till its extreme limit seemed to mingle with the haze on the horizon.

Having thus completed its stupendous sweep, it remained, brightening and paling by turns, for several minutes.

Finally, it slowly and imperceptibly faded away, vanishing first at the loftiest point of all, and lingering downward on either side, till all was gone.
"What a glorious arch!" exclaimed Cornelia.
"It was put there for us, was it not ?" rejoined Bressant.
Some of the other guests had come out in time to see the latter part of this spectacle, as it trembled athwart the heavens.

They "Oh'd" and "Ah'd" in vast astonishment and admiration; and one of them humorously asserted that it had been engaged, at a huge expense, to celebrate the anniversary of American Independence.

So the celestial arch vanished in the echo of a horse-laugh.