and were loudly clamouring for a table. The girl in the lead was the
one who had laughed. She wore a large hat with a long white feather,
and from under its brim her painted eyes looked at Charity with amused
recognition.

"Say! if this ain't like Old Home Week," she remarked to the girl at her
elbow; and giggles and glances passed between them. Charity knew at once
that the girl with the white feather was Julia Hawes. She had lost her
freshness, and the paint under her eyes made her face seem thinner; but
her lips had the same lovely curve, and the same cold mocking smile, as
if there were some secret absurdity in the person she was looking at,
and she had instantly detected it.

Charity flushed to the forehead and looked away. She felt herself
humiliated by Julia's sneer, and vexed that the mockery of such a
creature should affect her. She trembled lest Harney should notice that
the noisy troop had recognized her; but they found no table free, and
passed on tumultuously.

Presently there was a soft rush through the air and a shower of silver
fell from the blue evening sky. In another direction, pale Roman candles
shot up singly through the trees, and a fire-haired rocket swept the
horizon like a portent. Between these intermittent flashes the velvet
curtains of the darkness were descending, and in the intervals of
eclipse the voices of the crowds seemed to sink to smothered murmurs.

Charity and Harney, dispossessed by newcomers, were at length obliged
to give up their table and struggle through the throng about the
boat-landings. For a while there seemed no escape from the tide of late
arrivals; but finally Harney secured the last two places on the stand