The great door of glass and gilding opposite the throne was flung wide, and a grand usher in a grand court livery flourished a mighty grand wand, and shouted, in a stentorian voice, "Back: back, ye lieges, and make way for Her Majesty, Queen Miranda!" Instantly the unseen band thundered forth the national anthem.

The splendid throng fell back on either hand in profoundest silence and expectation.

The grand usher mysteriously disappeared, and in his place there stalked forward a score of soldiers, with clanking swords and fierce moustaches, in the gorgeous uniform of the king's body-guard.
These showy warriors arranged themselves silently on either side of the crimson throne, and were followed by half a dozen dazzling personages, the foremost crowned with mitre, armed with crozier, and robed in the ecclesiastical glory of an archbishop, but the face underneath, to the deep surprise and scandal of Sir Norman, was that of the fastest young roue of Charles court, after him came another pompous dignitary, in such unheard of magnificence that the unseen looker-on set him down for a prime minister, or a lord high chancellor, at the very least.

The somewhat gaudy-looking gentlemen who stepped after the pious prelate and peer wore the stars and garters of foreign courts, and were evidently embassadors extraordinary to that of her midnight majesty.

After them came a snowy flock of fair young girls, angels all but the wings, slender as sylphs, and robed in purest white.