As soon as Peter was gone to return to the boat, Malcolm dressed himself in his kilt and its belongings, and when it was fairly dusk, took his pipes under his arm, and set out for Portland Place. He had the better hope of speedy success to his plan, that he fancied he had read on his sister’s lips, in the silent communication that passed between her and her friend in the crowd, the words _come_ and _to-morrow_. It might have been the merest imagination, yet it was something: how often have we not to be grateful for shadows! Up and down the street he walked a long time, without seeing a sign of life about the house. But at length the hall was lighted. Then the door opened, and a servant rolled out a carpet over the wide pavement, which the snow had left wet and miry--a signal for the street children, ever on the outlook for sights, to gather. Before the first carriage arrived, there was already a little crowd of humble watchers and waiters about the gutter and curb-stone. But they were not destined to much amusement that evening, the visitors amounting only to a small dinner-party. Still they had the pleasure of seeing a few grand ladies issue from their carriages, cross the stage of their Epiphany, the pavement, and vanish in the paradise of the shining hall, with its ascent of gorgeous stairs. No broken steps, no missing balusters there! And they have the show all for nothing! It is one of the perquisites of street-service. What one would give to see the shapes glide over the field of those cameræ obscuræ, the hearts of the street Arabs! once to gaze on the jewelled beauties through the eyes of those shocked-haired girls! I fancy they do not often begrudge them what they possess, except perhaps when feature or hair or motion chances to remind them of some one of their own people, and they feel wronged and indignant that _she_ should flaunt in such splendour, “when _our Sally_ would set off grand clothes so much better!” It is neither the wealth nor the general consequence it confers that they envy, but, as I imagine, the power of making a show--of living in the eyes and knowledge of neighbours for a few radiant moments: nothing is so pleasant to ordinary human nature as to know itself by its reflection from others. When it turns from these warped and broken mirrors to seek its reflection in the divine thought, then it is redeemed; then it beholds itself in the perfect law of liberty. Before he became himself an object of curious interest to the crowd he was watching, Malcolm had come to the same conclusion with many a philosopher and observer of humanity before him--that on the whole the rags are inhabited by the easier hearts; and he would have arrived at the conclusion with more certainty but for the _high_ training that cuts off intercourse between heart and face.