The next afternoon Jerome went to Miss Camilla's tea-party.

Sitting in the arbor, whose interior was all tremulous and vibrant with green lights and shadows, as with a shifting water-play, sipping tea from delicate china, eating custards and the delectable plum-cake, he tasted again one of the few sweet savors of his childhood.
Jerome, in the arbor with three happy young people, taking for the first time since his childhood a holiday on a work-day, seemed to comprehend the first notes of that great harmony of life which proves by the laws of sequence the last.

The premonition of some final blessedness, to survive all renunciation and sacrifice, was upon him.
He felt raised above the earth with happiness.

Jerome seemed like another person to his companions.

The wine of youth and certainty of joy stirred all the light within him to brilliancy.