the
form taken by Harold's latest craze; and in justice this much had to be
said for him, that in the christening of his amusement he had gone
right to the heart of the matter. The words "will" and "testament" have
various meanings and uses; but about the signification of "death-letter"
there can be no manner of doubt. I smoothed out the crumpled paper and
read. In actual form it deviated considerably from that usually adopted
by family solicitors of standing, the only resemblance, indeed, lying in
the absence of punctuation.

"my dear edward (it ran) when I die I leave all my muny to you my walkin
sticks wips my crop my sord and gun bricks forts and all things i have
goodbye my dear charlotte when i die I leave you my wach and cumpus and
pencel case my salors and camperdown my picteres and evthing goodbye
your loving brother armen my dear Martha I love you very much i leave
you my garden my mice and rabets my plants in pots when I die please
take care of them my dear--" Coetera desunt.

"Why, you're not leaving me anything!" exclaimed Selina, indignantly.
"You're a regular mean little boy, and I'll take back the last birthday
present I gave you!"

"I don't care," said Harold, repossessing himself of the document. "I
was going to leave you something, but I sha'n't now, 'cos you tried to
read my death-letter before I was dead!"

"Then I'll write a death-letter myself," retorted Selina, scenting an
artistic vengeance: "and I sha'n't leave you a single thing!" And she
went off in search of a pencil.

The tempest within-doors had kept my attention off the condition of
things without. But now a glance through the window told me that the
rain had entirely ceased, and that everything was bathed instead in a
radiant glow of sunlight, more golden than any gamboge of mine could
possibly depict. Leaving Selina and Harold to settle their feud by a
mutual disinheritance, I slipped from the room and escaped into the open
air, eager to pick up the loose end of my new friendship just where I
had dropped it that morning. In the glorious reaction of the sunshine
after the downpour, with its moist warm smells, bespanglement of
greenery, and inspiriting touch of rain-washed air, the parks and
palaces of the imagination glowed with a livelier iris, and their
blurred beauties shone out again with fresh blush and palpitation. As
I sped along to the tryst, again I accompanied my new comrade along the
corridors of my pet palace into w