quainted with them their outlines could hardly
be distinguished from the leaden gray clouds lying in bands along the
horizon.

But as the party stood on the roof the clouds began to rise, tower
upon tower, against the sky, and the sun, who retires early at this
season, went behind them, when, instead of the pale, wistful gleam he
had been keeping up all day, he suddenly threw a deep bright golden
border on all the edges of the dark misty battlements which had piled
themselves like castles of the Titans: a big rift appearing at their
base, there poured through it, filling up the space, a great belt of
crimson rays streaked with gray, as if from burning ashes falling into
it, and like the dense glow from a furnace, giving the idea that the
cloud-building was on fire, and that the flames from below, shooting
up inside the dark walls, were the cause of the brilliant illumination
that shone round every pinnacle and coign of vantage. It was a grand
and a curious sight. You could fancy the sun looking across to the
old Castle of Edinburgh standing on its rock, and saying, "Can you
do anything like this with all the gas and paddelle you can lay your
hands on?" Precisely this idea struck Mrs. Parker, for she said, "I
think that is as good a sight as the castle the night the prince was
married."

"That was a very good sight in its way," said Mr. Parker, "but we can
hardly hope to compete with the sun, my dear: he has all his materials
within himself, and we have to pay for them."

"Do you know, Miss Ormiston," said Mrs. Parker, "one of the buildings
they said had such a fine effect put me in mind of a trunk studded
with brass nails--the initials of the happy pair in gas-jets looked
like the name of the owner of the trunk. All the time I was on the
street I could not get that notion out of my head; and I was sorry,
for I am sure it cost a great deal of money to light it up, and I
really wished to think it grand."

"We were all in town that night," said John Ormiston--"papa and mamma,
and the whole of us, and Mr. Forrester, who made eight."

"I thought it a beautiful sight," said Bessie.

"I never enjoyed anything more in my life," said Mr. Forrester, who on
that occasion had been Miss Ormiston's escort through the streets, in
which they lost their party, and had the supreme bliss of wandering
together in the crowd, when Mr. Forrester almost forgot that Miss
Ormiston was a goddess with five thousand earthly charms, and Miss