"Perhaps paper happened to be more in the fashion, and they did not care about either. My grandfather did not leave the wainscot, however, under the paper. At least, he must have removed a great deal of it. There is an immense lot of old carved work that he removed from the walls and rooms in a lumber-garret at the top of the house."
"Is there though, really?" said the Duke, with much eagerness; "then you must let me see it to-morrow—you must indeed; nothing would interest me more."
Just then a white stream of ladies issued from the illuminated porch, and flowed down the broad stairs. Their diamonds glittered in the light, flashing visibly to a considerable distance. They came slowly forward to the lawn.
"I think it is time to have the fireworks now," said Lady Helena to the Colonel.
The Colonel called the officers about him, whilst the other gentlemen began to talk to the ladies. "It would prevent confusion," he said, "if we were to muster the men properly to see the fireworks. I should like them to have good places; but there is some chance, you know, that they might damage things in the garden unless they come in military order. There are already great numbers of people in the park, and I think it would be better to keep our men separate from the crowd as much as possible." Horses were brought for the Colonel and other field-officers, and they rode to the camp, the others following on foot. Transparencies had been set up at different parts of the garden, with the numbers of the companies; and the arrangements had been so perfectly made, that in less than twenty minutes every company was at its appointed place.
No private individual in John Stanburne's position could afford a display of pyrotechnics sufficient to astonish such experienced people as his noble guests; but Lady Helena and the pyrotechnician, or "firework-man," as her ladyship more simply called him, had planned something quite sufficiently effective. He and his assistants were on the roof of the Hall, where temporary platforms and railings had been set up in different places for their accommodation; and the floods of fire that soon issued therefrom astonished many of the spectators, especially Mrs. Prigley. And yet when a perfectly novel device was displayed, which the "firework-man" had invented for the occasion, and Lady Helena asked Mrs. Prigley what she thought of it, that lady averred that she had seen it before, in some former state of existence, and had "always thought it very beautiful."
Suddenly these words, "The Fiery Niagara," shone in great burning letters along the front of the house, and then an immense cascade of fire poured over the roof in all directions, and hid Wenderholme Hall as completely as the rock is hidden where the real Niagara thunders into its abyss. At the same time trees of green fire burned on the sides of the flowing river, and their boughs seemed to dip in its rushing gold, as the boughs of the sycamores bend over the swift-flowing water. And behind the edge of the great cascade rose slowly a great round moon.