When they had taken their places at the table, Julia did not again venture to raise her eyes, while the long fringes of the downcast lids rested on cheeks from which a more than usual glow had not yet subsided. She happened to be seated beneath a peculiarly brilliant lamp, and, consequently, in the very midst of a shower of beams; so that the consciousness of want of shelter for the blushes already raised called up, each moment, new ones. The blaze of light streaming thus on her countenance, shining on each of all the light and glossy ringlets, which floated in rich profusion around her shoulders, (such was then the fashion,) and reflected by the dazzling whiteness of her neck and arms, rendered her altogether so bright a vision that any one who had sat in the dangerous vicinity might have found their eyes attracted in that direction. It was the voice of Lord L⸺ proposing some interesting question respecting the choice of soups, which seemed to remind Fitz-Ullin that his had been fixed on his fair neighbour longer than good breeding would have authorised. He had been picturing to himself, in contrast with the present, that hour of darkness and wild alarm, when that same profusion of beautiful hair that it now seemed dangerous but to look upon, had hung dishevelled over his own arm; that Julia, now so bashful, so reserved, had clung to his side as though he were all that was dear to her on earth! Had such things been? And now was it, indeed, the same being who sat beside him, all brightness, all attraction, yet unapproachable? During the evening, as there were no strangers present, the late extraordinary event formed the chief topic of conversation. Fitz-Ullin’s manner, while the subject was being discussed, puzzled Lord L⸺ extremely. Fitz-Ullin was now speaking, and seemingly with effort; his eyes the while fixed on the arrangement his own fingers were making on the tea-table, of the crumbs to which they had reduced a small bit of cake, accepted probably as unconsciously as now its pulverized particles were formed into squares and circles. “He either,” continued Lord L⸺ to himself, “is more interested than, for some reason or other, he chooses should be known, or less so than, in common gratitude to the family, and a natural feeling of regard towards the companion of his childhood, he ought to be!” What Lord L⸺ would have thought of our hero cherishing a natural feeling of regard for the companion of his childhood had he continued the poor nameless Edmund, he did not ask himself. The next morning Lord L⸺ and his daughter left Edinburgh. CHAPTER XXXVII. “Hail, light of Innisfail!” “Sunbeam of beauty, hail!” We shall pass over Julia’s reception at Lodore, it was so exactly what might have been expected.