ction. Some other boy,
perhaps, would some day release that spring again. I trusted he would be
equally appreciative. As I opened the door to go, I could hear from the
nursery at the end of the passage shouts and yells, telling that the
hunt was up. Bears, apparently, or bandits, were on the evening bill of
fare, judging by the character of the noises. In another minute I would
be in the thick of it, in all the warmth and light and laughter. And
yet--what a long way off it all seemed, both in space and time, to me
yet lingering on the threshold of that old-world chamber!

"EXIT TYRANNUS"

The eventful day had arrived at last, the day which, when first named,
had seemed--like all golden dates that promise anything definite--so
immeasurably remote. When it was first announced, a fortnight before,
that Miss Smedley was really going, the resultant ecstasies had occupied
a full week, during which we blindly revelled in the contemplation and
discussion of her past tyrannies, crimes, malignities; in recalling to
each other this or that insult, dishonour, or physical assault, sullenly
endured at a time when deliverance was not even a small star on the
horizon; and in mapping out the golden days to come, with special new
troubles of their own, no doubt, since this is but a work-a-day world,
but at least free from one familiar scourge. The time that remained had
been taken up by the planning of practical expressions of the popular
sentiment. Under Edward's masterly direction, arrangements had been made
for a flag to be run up over the hen-house at the very moment when the
fly, with Miss Smedley's boxes on top and the grim oppressor herself
inside, began to move off down the drive. Three brass cannons, set on
the brow of the sunk-fence, were to proclaim our deathless sentiments
in the ears of the retreating foe: the dogs were to wear ribbons,
and later--but this depended on our powers of evasiveness and
dissimulation--there might be a small bonfire, with a cracker or two, if
the public funds could bear the unwonted strain.

I was awakened by Harold digging me in the ribs, and "She's going
to-day!" was the morning hymn that scattered the clouds of sleep.

Strange to say, it was with no corresponding jubilation of spirits
that I slowly realised the momentous fact. Indeed, as I dressed, a dull
disagreeable feeling that I could not define grew within me--something
like a physical bruise. Harold was evidently feeling it too, f