The merrymaking is at its height; the blasts of the trombones resound from the band under the acacias.

For a few moments I forget myself with looking about; but I have promised the two sisters to take them back to the Bellevue station; the train cannot wait, and I make haste to climb the path again which leads to the walnut-trees.
Just before I reached them, I heard voices on the other side of the hedge.

Madeleine and Frances were speaking to a poor girl whose clothes were burned, her hands blackened, and her face tied up with bloodstained bandages.

I saw that she was one of the girls employed at the gunpowder mills, which are built further up on the common.

An explosion had taken place a few days before; the girl's mother and elder sister were killed; she herself escaped by a miracle, and was now left without any means of support.