on which she had been standing, so excited
that all the weakness of age seemed to have been suddenly swept from
her.

She had intended to sleep in the village that night; now she bent her
steps resolutely toward the castle.

As she came out of the chestnut avenue, keeping upon the turf and among
the shadows, all of the glory of that illumination broke upon her.

The broad terrace, flooded with light--a fountain, directly in front,
shooting up a column of liquid crystal thirty feet or more, where it
branched off, like a tree of quivering ice swayed gracefully in the
wind, and broke up in a storm of drops that rained downward, flashing
and glittering through that golden atmosphere to their source again.

Above this rose those grand old towers, garlanded with colored lamps
that wound in and out of the clinging ivy in great wreaths and chains of
tinted fire, which harmonized with the quivering foliage, and flooded
the fountain, the terrace, and all the neighboring trees with a soft
atmosphere of golden green.

Here and there the gray old stonework of the towers broke through,
revealing glimpses of the giant strength which lay hidden underneath;
and over the right hand tower, from a flag-staff turned around and
around with star-like lights, the broad, red banner, with which the
Carsets had for centuries defied their enemies and welcomed their
friends, floated slowly out upon the night wind.

Hannah Yates saw all this, and knew, by the music which thrilled the air
around her, that the revel, whatever it was, had commenced; for a sound
of pleasant voices and sweet laughter came through the open windows, and
from the depths of the park--where an ox had been roasted whole that
day, and wine and beer had flowed freely as the waters of the
fountain--came subdued sounds of a waning festival, which had been
given to the tenantry and villagers. The gaiety of the castle was
answered back from the park, and harmonized by that of the working
people who tilled all the broad lands around it.

When the old woman heard these answering sounds she felt that an heiress
to all this greatness was acknowledged that night, for when lords
gathered in the castle, and tenants in the park, it was usually to
acknowledge the rights of a coming heir, and she could not believe that
all this had been done in honor of Lady Hope.

Hannah Yates lost all the unnatural strength that had brought her among
this splendor. She knew that it was scarcely po