in the
middle; and I pulled up short, recognising Charlotte's plaintive note.

She panted up anon, and dropped on the turf beside me. Neither had any
desire for talk; the glow and the glory of existing on this perfect
morning were satisfaction full and sufficient.

"Where's Harold;" I asked presently.

"Oh, he's just playin' muffin-man, as usual," said Charlotte with
petulance. "Fancy wanting to be a muffin-man on a whole holiday!"

It was a strange craze, certainly; but Harold, who invented his own
games and played them without assistance, always stuck staunchly to
a new fad, till he had worn it quite out. Just at present he was a
muffin-man, and day and night he went through passages and up and down
staircases, ringing a noiseless bell and offering phantom muffins to
invisible wayfarers. It sounds a poor sort of sport; and yet--to pass
along busy streets of your own building, for ever ringing an imaginary
bell and offering airy muffins of your own make to a bustling thronging
crowd of your own creation--there were points about the game, it
cannot be denied, though it seemed scarce in harmony with this radiant
wind-swept morning!

"And Edward, where is he?" I questioned again.

"He's coming along by the road," said Charlotte. "He'll be crouching
in the ditch when we get there, and he's going to be a grizzly bear and
spring out on us, only you mustn't say I told you, 'cos it's to be a
surprise."

"All right," I said magnanimously. "Come on and let's be surprised." But
I could not help feeling that on this day of days even a grizzly felt
misplaced and common.

Sure enough an undeniable bear sprang out on us as we dropped into the
road; then ensued shrieks, growlings, revolver-shots, and unrecorded
heroisms, till Edward condescended at last to roll over and die, bulking
large and grim, an unmitigated grizzly. It was an understood thing, that
whoever took upon himself to be a bear must eventually die, sooner or
later, even if he were the eldest born; else, life would have been all
strife and carnage, and the Age of Acorns have displaced our hard-won
civilisation. This little affair concluded with satisfaction to all
parties concerned, we rambled along the road, picking up the defaulting
Harold by the way, muffinless now and in his right and social mind.

"What would you do?" asked Charlotte presently,--the book of the
moment always dominating her thoughts until it was sucked dry and cast
aside,--"what would you