A GORGEOUS DISPLAY.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3159, 13 August 1881, Page 4

A GORGEOUS DISPLAY.

The account of the ball given by Mrs Machay in Paris lately reads like some eumptuous fete of the Empire. Two hundred servants, in liveries of black and scarlet and gold ; ball-room lined with mirrors and old tapestry ; Valdteufels leading the band, vocalists singing the valses ; souvenirs for the guests of silver from Mr Mackay's mines, bearing the Wackay arms and the date of the ball; menus white and pink satin; £240 worth of strawberries and aterlets from "Russia. Could hospitality go further ? General Noyes, who was importuned for invitations, replied, ' You seem to forget that I am here to protect Mr Mackay. , The dancing-room, of vast proportions, was built at great expense, specially for the ball, in the garden of the bouse. It was brilliantly ornamented with a dozen columns, and lighted by as many chandeliers, remaining, notwithstanding, however, somewhat cold. The toilettes of the ladies were of great, splpndour, but none of them equalled those of the mistress of the mansion and her sister, the Countess f'elfetter. Those toilets were two poems. It. is said that Mrs Mackay had made 12 dresses out nf which to select one for the ball, and that the lace which she wore cost £50"0. On her dress neither pearls nor diamonds were seen in profusion. The dinner at midnight was followed by a first supper pprved for the papas and mammas at 2 o'clock in the morning, and that supper by a second one at 4 o'clock. Both supper? wrvp perred on lan!'* and small tables, find Sno n<-reon.« ronl.'Kiit di-v\n at them. The l-.piMi vvis not engraved this time on silver pliites, hnt pniih'd on bands of satin. Jt <•.->,■> worH:v of r.iic'.illna, for among other )'T- r s w;t« film , "! fresh aepriratrn*, wliic'i sell-; at pre.-ent for £1 5s n small box. Mr GVHardet lifnts that a rupture between Mrs IVfnctenv and Queen Isabella has taken pi'^p—the former htiving declined the hand nf •!":■,' lnftpr'x chamberlain for her daughter.