panels were simply filled with diamonds, rubies and other precious stones. It was not so much the beauty of these stones themselves as the arrangement of the colours, and the harmony of the designs, that struck me; the effect was grand. The light came as usual from the ceiling, but by a sort of self-acting sliding screen that kept continually moving over it, while the light was as continually shifting and changing, and the effect was one of great beauty. At one moment you saw a gleam of light coming from pure diamonds, while anon this bright, pure light would change into a pink, a blue, or a green, and all the colours would for the moment blend, then disentangle working out into separate rays, asserting, as it were, their own individuality. A little further on they were in fond embrace, co-mingling beauty with beauty, and effect with effect, when anon as if by one consent they fall out; they become agitated, and quarrelling, separate. So the game continued, beauty contending with
