Rideau Hall was white with purple stockings and "tuke," and red
sash. Others were sky-blue, with scarlet stockings and "tuke," or
crimson and black, or brown and green. A collection of three
hundred people in blanket-suits gave the effect of a peripatetic
rainbow against the white snow. For the "Arctic Cremorne" the
rinks were all fringed with coloured fairy-lamps; the curling-rink
and the tea-room above it were also outlined with innumerable
coloured electric bulbs, and festoons of Japanese lanterns were
stretched between the fir trees in all directions. At the top of
the toboggan slides powerful arc-lamps blazed, and a stupendous
bonfire roared on a little eminence. The effect was indescribably
pretty, and it was pleasant to reflect how man had triumphed over
Nature in being able to give an outdoor evening party in mid-
winter with the thermometer below zero. The gleaming crystals of
snow reflecting the coloured lamps; the Bengal lights staining the
white expanse crimson and green, and silhouetting the outlines of
the fir trees in dead black against the burnished steel of the
sky; the crowd of guests in their many-coloured blanket-suits,
made a singularly attractive picture, with a note of absolute
novelty in it; and the crash of the military band, the merry whirr
of the skates, and the roar of the descending toboggans had
something extraordinarily exhilarating about them in the keen,
pure air.
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