h, a narrow
streak of gold ran out and stretched away, straight along the horizon.
Somewhere very far off, a horn was being blown, clear and thin; it
sounded like the golden streak grown audible, while the gold seemed
the visible sound. It pricked my ebbing courage, this blended strain of
music and colour, and I turned for a last effort; and Fortune thereupon,
as if half-ashamed of the unworthy game she had been playing with me,
relented, opening her clenched fist. Hardly had I put my hand once more
to the obdurate wood, when with a sort of small sigh, almost a sob--as
it were--of relief, the secret drawer sprang open.

I drew it out and carried it to the window, to examine it in the failing
light. Too hopeless had I gradually grown, in my dispiriting search, to
expect very much; and yet at a glance I saw that my basket of glass lay
in fragments at my feet. No ingots or dollars were here, to crown me the
little Monte Cristo of a week. Outside, the distant horn had ceased its
gnat-song, the gold was paling to primrose, and everything was lonely
and still. Within, my confident little castles were tumbling down like
card-houses, leaving me stripped of estate, both real and personal, and
dominated by the depressing reaction.

And yet,--as I looked again at the small collection that lay within
that drawer of disillusions, some warmth crept back to my heart as I
recognised that a kindred spirit to my own had been at the making of it.
Two tarnished gilt buttons,--naval, apparently,--a portrait of a monarch
unknown to me, cut from some antique print and deftly coloured by hand
in just my own bold style of brush-work,--some foreign copper coins,
thicker and clumsier of make than those I hoarded myself,--and a list of
birds' eggs, with names of the places where they had been found. Also, a
ferret's muzzle, and a twist of tarry string, still faintly aromatic. It
was a real boy's hoard, then, that I had happened upon. He too had found
out the secret drawer, this happy starred young person; and here he had
stowed away his treasures, one by one, and had cherished them secretly
awhile; and then--what? Well, one would never know now the reason why
these priceless possessions still lay here unreclaimed; but across the
void stretch of years I seemed to touch hands a moment with my little
comrade of seasons long since dead.

I restored the drawer, with its contents, to the trusty bureau, and
heard the spring click with a certain satisfa