no excuse for leaving _nuestros amigos_ at the
lawyer's office, and drawing a green curtain, as it were, on the actors of
this humble comedy.

Some six years are supposed to have elapsed since the drop-scene fell on
our last act.

From this out our story is rather a pantomime than a play. We give pictures
and figures, instead of dialogues and soliloquies. Will the reader follow
us?

I.

Time has not touched Mr. Flint gently. His hair is grayer, his step more
feeble, and his eyes have a lack-lustre look. His cravat is whiter and
stiffer, if possible, than ever; and he looks more religious. God grant
that he is so. But we doubt it. For to such as he, nor April, with its
purple-mouthed violets, nor red ripe summer, with its wealth of roses, nor
the rich fruit-harvest of autumnal suns, bring wisdom's goodness. The
various months teach him no lesson. Let him go. He came like a shadow into
our plot, so let him depart. He is not a myth, however, but flesh and blood
mortality; and though we have only outlined his weakness--his love of gold,
his cold, intriguing spirit--yet the sketch is such that, if he looks at
it, he will have the felicity of seeing himself as others see him!

II.

It is a day in June, an hour before sunset. The lanes leading to an old
house situated between Ivyton and the sea, are fringed with pink peach
blossoms, and the air is freighted with their odors. The violets, with dew
in their azure eyes, peep from every possible nook; and those sweet peris
of the summer wood, wild roses, are grouping everywhere. Surely Titania has
been in this spot, breathing exquisite beauty upon the flowers, or,
perhaps, Flora's dainty self. The blue-bells, these yellow-chaliced
butter-cups, are fit haunts for fairies, and, perchance, wild Puck, or
Prospero's good Ariel has been slumbering in them. But let us draw near to
the fine old house which stands in this new Eden. It was here that we first
met the little castle-builders--the child Bell and Mortimer. The place is
not changed much. The same emerald waves break on the white beach; the same
cherry-trees are spreading their green tresses, and the simple church-yard
sleeps, as it used, in sunshine and shadow.

The house has been newly painted, and the fresh green blinds make one feel
a sense of shade and coolness. The garden in front has been re-made with a
careful eye to its old beauties. The white pebbled walks, the strawberry
and clover beds, the globes of pansies, a