arm, and Auntie, livid, heavily
breathing, pointed to the silver flask filled with brandy, to the
parcel of sandwiches Grace had cut for her, chatting happily the while,
that morning. The man took them without a word, and pushed them in the
pocket of his coat.

The train was slackening still. Auntie grasped her bag, with weak,
half-paralysed fingers drew out the bag of money and jewels for which
the man had groped last night beneath her pillow, put it in his hand.
There came a sound in Augustus Mellish's throat that might have been a
sob or a strangled word; then the door opened wider; a moment, and he
had slipped from sight.

The station was passed, and the train sped on, bearing Auntie, sole
occupant of the carriage, her journey nearly done.

At St Pancras the guard, the chances of half-crown or no half-crown
still agitating his mind, came to the door of the first-class carriage
he had taken under his special supervision. He touched his cap with a
smile expressive of felicitation that, thanks to his unremitting care,
the lady had reached the end of her travels undisturbed and in peace
from intrusion.

But Auntie was lying back in her corner, dead.

WILLY AND I

When we were little--Willy and I--oh, such a weary long year ago!--we
lived in a big house, in a wide, quiet street in the old town of
Norwich. Now, although the house was so big, there was allotted to it
only a small square of garden; a garden exquisitely kept and fostered;
a garden to smell the roses in, blushing on their neat rows of
standards; to walk in, holding father's or mother's hand; even,
wondrous treat! to take our tea in, sometimes, sitting demurely, we
two, with a couple of dolls and a few lead soldiers from Willy's last
new box for company, at the little round table whose root was buried
deep in the ground beneath the red may-tree. A garden for such mild
pleasures, but not for play. A garden that was the delight of our
city-bred father, who protected the sprouting mignonette seeds from
depredations of snail and slug, who trained with tenderest care the
slenderest shoots of sweet-pea and canariense, who tied and pruned and
watered with his own hands when office hours were over. A broken toy
would have been as great an offence in that treasured spot as a stray
cat; a little footmark on the verbena bed, a kicked-up stone on the
gravel walk, were punishable offences. No room for us two children
there.

And so, besides the nursery wh