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
Ormiston had compared his merits as a guide and protector with those
of her brothers, and found he was much more considerate, and made her
wish law, which they were often far from doing. In point of fact, a
thaw had been very imminent, but, alas! since then a sharp frost had
set in between them, as unaccountably as frosts frequently do set in.

"I think, now," said Mrs. Parker, "a fine old castle like this ought
to have had a grander name: don't you think so, Miss Ormiston?"