Now Vavasor was in reality not a little disgusted at what he beheld. He had called without a notion of what was going on, and seeing the row of lights along the gallery as he was making for the drawing-room, had changed his direction and followed it, knowing nothing of the room to which it led. Blinded by the glare, and a little bewildered by the unexpectedness of the sight, he did not at first discern the kind of company he had entered; but the state of the atmosphere was unaccountable, and for a moment it seemed as if, thinking to enter Paradise, he had mistaken and opened the left-hand door. Presently his eyes coming to themselves, confirmed the fact that he was in the midst of a notable number of the unwashed. He had often talked with Hester about the poor, and could not help knowing that she had great sympathy with them. He was ready indeed as they were now a not unfashionable subject in some of the minor circles of the world's elect, to talk about them with any one he might meet. But in the poor themselves he could hardly be said to have the most rudimentary interest; and that a lady should degrade herself by sending her voice into such ears, and coming into actual contact with such persons and their attendant disgusts--except indeed it were for electioneering purposes--exposing both voice and person to their abominable remarks, was to him a thing simply incomprehensible. The admission of such people to a respectable house, and the entertainment of them as at a music hall, could have its origin only in some wild semi-political scheme of the old fellow, who had more crotchets in his head than brain could well hold! It was a proceeding as disgraceful as extraordinary! Puh! Could the tenth part of the air present be oxygen? To think of the woman he worshipped being in such a hell! The woman he could honor little by any worship he gave her, was far more secure from evil eyes and evil thoughts in that company than she would have been in any drawing-room of his world. Her angel would rather see her where she was.