And so on, and so on. Like many invalids, she was most lively at night, and she continued to complain through long restless hours, with the candles burning lower and lower, and the snuffers coming into more frequent request. Until with the chill before the dawn she fell at last into a fitful sleep; and Mary, creeping to the close-curtained windows to cool her weary eyes, peeped out and saw the grey of the morning. Outside, the Square was beginning to discover its half-bare trees and long straight rows of houses. Through openings, here and there, the water glimmered mistily; and on the height facing her, the tall tower of St. Mary Redcliffe rose above the roofs and pointed skywards. Little did Mary think what the day would bring forth in that grey deserted place on which she looked; or in what changed conditions, under what stress of mind and heart, she would, before the sun set twice, view that Square. XXX THE MAYOR’S RECEPTION IN QUEEN’S SQUARE The day, of which Mary watched the cloudy opening from her mother’s window, was drawing to a close; and from a house in the same Square—but on the north side, whereas Miss Sibson’s was on the west—another pair of eyes looked out, while a heart, which a few hours before had been as sore as hers, rose a little at the prospect. Arthur Vaughan, ignorant of her proximity—to love’s shame be it said—sat in a window on the first floor of the Mansion House, and, undismayed by the occasional crash of glass, watched the movements of the swaying, shouting, mocking crowd; a crowd, numbering some thousands, which occupied the middle space of the Square, as well as the roadways, clustered upon the Immortal Memory, overflowed into the side streets, and now joined in one mighty roar of “Reform! Reform!” now groaned thunderously at the name of Wetherell. Behind Vaughan in the same room, the drawing-room of the official residence, some twenty or thirty persons argued and gesticulated; at one time approaching a window to settle a debated point, at another scattering with exclamations of anger as a stone fell or some other missile alighted among them. “Boo! Boo!” yelled the mob below. “Throw him out! Reform! Reform!”