But no one else had crossed with them; and, as they stood at the turnstiles, all they could see of the grounds beyond seemed so dark and silent that they began to have involuntary misgivings. "I suppose," said Jauncy to the man at the ticket-hole, "the gardens are open--eh?" "Oh yes," he said gruffly, "_they're_ open--they're _open_; though there ain't much going on out-of-doors, being the last night of the season." Bella again wished that they had selected the Adelphi for their evening's pleasure, and remarked that Jauncy "might have known." "Well," said the latter to the party generally, "what do you say--shall we go in, or get back by the first train home?" "Don't be so ridiculous, James!" said Bella, peevishly. "What's the good of going back, to be too late for everything. The mischief's done now." "Oh, let's go in!" advised Ada; "the amusements and things will be just as nice indoors--nicer on a chilly evening like this;" and Leander seconded her heartily. So they went in; Jauncy leading the way with the still complaining Bella, and Leander Tweddle bringing up the rear with Ada. They picked their way as well as they could in the darkness, caused by the closely planted trees and shrubs, down a winding path, where the sopped leaves gave a slippery foothold, and the branches flicked moisture insultingly in their faces as they pushed them aside. A dead silence reigned everywhere, broken only by the wind as it rustled amongst the bare twigs, or the whistling of a flaring gas-torch protruding from some convenient tree. Jauncy occasionally shouted back some desperate essay at jocularity, at which Ada laughed with some perseverance, until even she could no longer resist the influence of the surroundings. On a hot summer's evening those grounds, brilliantly illuminated and crowded by holiday-makers, have been the delight of thousands of honest Londoners, and will be so again; but it was undeniable that on this particular occasion they were pervaded by a decent melancholy. Ada had slipped a hand, clad in crimson silk, through Leander's arm as they groped through the gloom together, and shrank to his side now and then in an alarm which was only half pretended. But if her light pressure upon his arm made his heart beat at all the faster, it was only at the fancy that the trusting hand was his Matilda's, or so at least did he account for it to himself afterwards. They followed on, down a broad promenade, where the ground glistened with autumn damps, and the unlighted lamps looked wan and spectral. There was a bear-pit hard by, over the railings of which Ada leaned and shouted a defiant "Boo;" but the bears had turned in for the night, and the stone re-echoed her voice with a hollow ring. Indistinct bird forms were roosting in cages; but her umbrella had no effect upon them.