"It's very good of your uncle to have them," said Rose. "What a crowd from the town! Think of the pyrotechnics among comets and aerolites some fellows may have! It's quite right, too, to make our festivals with light; it's the highest and last of all things; we never can carry our imaginations beyond light"---- "Our imaginations ought to carry us," said Lu. "Come," I said, "you can play what pranks you please with the little May; but light is my province, my absorption; let it alone." It grew quite dark, interrupted now and then by the glare of rockets; but at last a stream of central fire went out in a slow rain of countless violets, reflected with pale blue flashes in the river below, and then the gloom was unbroken. I saw them, in that long, dim gleam, standing together at a window. Louise, her figure almost swaying as if to some inaudible music, but her face turned to him with such a steady quiet. Ah, me! what a tremulous joy, what passion, and what search, lit those eyes! But you know that passion means suffering, and, tracing it in the original through its roots, you come to pathos, and still farther, to lamentation, I've heard. But he was not looking down at her, only out and away, paler than ever in the blue light, sad and resolved. I ordered candles. "Sing to me, Louise," said Rose, at length. "It is two years since I heard you." "Sing 'What's a' the steer, kimmer,'" I said. But instead, she gave the little ballad, 'And bring my love again, for he lies among the moors.' Rose went and leaned over the pianoforte while she sang, bending and commanding her eyes. He seemed to wish to put himself where he was before he ever left her, to awaken everything lovely in her, to bring her before him as utterly developed as she might be,--not only to afford her, but to force upon her every chance to master him. He seemed to wish to love, I thought. "Thank you," he said, as she ceased. "Did you choose it purposely, Louise?" Lu sang very nicely, and, though I dare say she would rather not then, when Mr. Dudley asked for the "Vale of Avoca" and the "Margin of Zuerich's Fair Waters," she gave them just as kindly. Altogether, quite a damp programme. Then papa came in, bright and blithe, whirled me round in a _pas de deux_, and we all very gay and hilarious slipped into the second of May.