The music was certainly ravishing, and it seemed to him, as he listened with enchanted ears, that he never wanted to wake up from so heavenly a dream.
One thing struck him as rather odd; strange and bewildered as everything was, it did not seem at all strange to him, on the contrary, a vague idea was floating mistily through his mind that he had beheld precisely the same thing somewhere before.

Probably at some past period of his life he had beheld a similar vision, or had seen a picture somewhere like it in a tale of magic, and satisfying himself with this conclusion, he began wondering if the genii of the place were going to make their appearance at all, or if the knowledge that human eyes were upon them had scared them back to Erebus.
While still ruminating on this important question, a portion of the tapestry, almost beneath him, shriveled up and up, and out flocked a glittering throng, with a musical mingling of laughter and voices.

Still they came, more and more, until the great room was almost filled, and a dazzling throng they were.

Sir Norman had mingled in many a brilliant scene at Whitehall, where the gorgeous court of Charles shone in all its splendor, with the "merry monarch" at their head, but all he had ever witnessed at the king's court fell far short of this pageant.

Half the brilliant flock were ladies, superb in satins, silks, velvets and jewels.