"Reuben, I--I think I will stop and see the fireworks; that is, if
Hannah is willing," said Nora musingly.

And so it was settled.

The rustics, after having demolished the whole of the plentiful supper,
leaving scarcely a bone or a crust behind them, rushed out in a body,
all the worse for a cask of old rye whisky that had been broached, and
began to search for eligible stands from which to witness the exhibition
of the evening.

Reuben conducted the sisters to a high knoll at some distance from the
disorderly crowd, but from which they could command a fine view of the
fireworks, which were to be let off in the lawn that lay below their
standpoint and between them and the front of the dwelling-house. Here
they sat as the evening closed in. As soon as it was quite dark the
whole front of the mansion-house suddenly blazed forth in a blinding
illumination. There were stars, wheels, festoons, and leaves, all in
fire. In the center burned a rich transparency, exhibiting the arms of
the Brudenells.

During this illumination none of the family appeared in front, as their
forms must have obscured a portion of the lights. It lasted some ten or
fifteen minutes, and then suddenly went out, and everything was again
dark as midnight. Suddenly from the center of the lawn streamed up a
rocket, lighting up with a lurid fire all the scene--the mansion-house
with the family and their more honored guests now seated upon the upper
piazza, the crowds of men, women, and children, white, black, and mixed,
that stood with upturned faces in the lawn, the distant knoll on which