Lewis, after dancing once with Sylvia and once with Mrs. Blair, who spoke to him kindly, wandered about, lonely enough. The people did not relax in the least their aloofness towards him. He felt inexpressibly sad and forlorn, and at this ball, too, which, as a matter of fact, might never have been given but for him. But the beauty and splendour of the scene dazzled him. He could not tear himself away. Something of the same spell was upon Bulstrode. He knew little and cared less for social life; he was one of those unfortunates who have but one single, solitary source of enjoyment--the purely intellectual; but the lights, the music, the gaiety, the festal air, had its effect even on his sluggish temperament. He sat in a corner of the drawing-room, his bulky, awkward figure filling up a great chair, and Lewis came and leaned silently upon the back of it. In some way, master and pupil felt strange to the rest of the world that night, and drawn together. “Mr. Bulstrode,” said Lewis presently, “I always feel alone in a crowd. Don’t you?” “Yes, boy,” answered Bulstrode, glancing about him with an odd look of dejection. “And in a crowd of merry-makers my old heart grows chill with loneliness.” “It is much worse to be lonely when you are young,” Lewis moralised. “But there is Miss Sylvia Shapleigh. I wonder if she will come up and talk to us?” Sylvia did come up and speak to them. There was a new brilliancy in her smile, and a deep and eloquent flush upon her cheek. Bulstrode felt compelled to pay her one of his awkward compliments. “My dear young lady,” he said, “to-night you look like one of those fair Greek girls of old, who lived but to smile and to dance and to love.” Sylvia’s colour deepened; she stood quite still, gazing at Bulstrode as if he had uttered a prophecy; but then Lewis, suddenly seeing people going out of the bay windows on the lawn, cried out excitedly: “Now the finest part of the fireworks is going off! Come along!” And, seizing her hand, they went out on the smooth-shaven lawn as far as the river. In spite of the coloured lights, it was dim, as there was no moon. The house, with its great wings, was so illuminated, that it looked enormously large. Afar off came the strains of music, while in the half darkness figures moved about like ghosts. Lewis and Sylvia, standing hand in hand, watched the great golden wheels that rose from a boat in the river magnificently lighting up the blue-black sky, and reflected in the blue-black water as they burst in a shower of sparkles. How good, in those days, were beautiful things to eyes unjaded, to minds prepared to marvel, to tastes so simple that almost anything could inspire wonder and delight!