Lesley Drummond on the lower terrace watching, listening, was conscious of a curiously new sense of enjoyment, almost exultation. Her life, the emotionally restricted life of the modern girl who, having freed herself from minor interests, has not yet found wider ones, had been, though she would never have admitted it, cold and grey. But to-night, for the first time, she realised that her nature held other possibilities. The dim darkness, the faint light, the mystery encompassing the mirth around her, even Jack Raymond's voice asking carelessly, as he passed, how she was getting on, made her feel dizzy with pleasure. 'We are having a splendid time,' she answered joyously. 'Aren't we, Jerry?' But Jerry answered nothing. He was much too absorbed; his wide grey eyes were wider than ever, staring out at the fireworks. 'What is it, Jerry?' she asked curiously. 'What do you see?' 'Oh! nuffing yet,' answered the little lad; 'but if it was to come----' As he spoke a sudden scream rose from a group of ladies close by. A man, running as for dear life to set and light a fresh row of fire-fountains, squibs, and crackers, had stumbled, tripped, fallen against the low parapet, and in his attempt to save himself had dropped some of the fireworks over on to the terrace. Nor was that all; the flaming, spouting gerb he carried in his left hand as a port fire, had swung round on them, and there they were in the middle of gauze and muslin--alight! A knot of squibs was the first to explode, darting hither and thither wickedly, like snakes, amid the frills and flounces, amid the screams! 'Keep back! Keep back!' shouted the men; and some had their coats off in a second, while others held the ladies' filmy dresses back, beating the sparks off with their hands, or stamping them out with their feet. But there was a round black something, with just a tiny glow sizzling slowly into it, which no one noticed as it lay alf hidden under a velvet gown; no one but Jerry---- The next instant he was standing with it in his hands, confused for the moment by the dense circle round him through which he saw no way for a small boy. 'Drop it, drop it!' shouted some one, and Lesley was beside him trying to snatch the detonator from him. But he dodged from her with an appealing cry. 'It's mine. It weally is my shell--it weally is!' He dodged Nevill Lloyd also, who dashed at him yelling--'Drop it, you young fool'; and he might have gone on dodging others till that tiny glow sizzled in to the powder, if some one else, realising the situation and the few seconds' grace that remained, had not shouted-- 'Hold tight, Jerry! Hold tight!'--and so, with that reassuring request had run to the child, caught him in his arms, and forced a way through the crowd to the parapet. 'Now, my lad, heave!' came the order.