silence by exclaiming:--

"O Uncle Harry, we haven't been out to see the goat to-day!"

"Budge," I replied, "I'll carry you out there under an umbrella after
lunch, and you may play with that goat all the afternoon, if you like."

"Oh, won't that be nice?" exclaimed Budge. "The poor goat! he'll think
I don't love him a bit, 'cause I haven't been to see him to-day. Does
goats go to heaven when they die, Uncle Harry?"

"Guess not--they'd make trouble in the golden streets, I'm afraid."

"Oh, dear! then Phillie can't see my goat. I'm so awful sorry," said
Budge.

"_I_ can see your goat, Budgie," suggested Toddie.

"Huh!" said Budge, very contemptuously. "YOU ain't dead."

"Well, Izhe GOIN' to be dead some day 'an zen your nashty old goat
sha'n't see me a bit--see how he like ZAT." And Toddie made a ferocious
attack on a slice of melon nearly as large as himself.

After lunch Toddie was sent to his room to take his afternoon nap, and
Budge went to the barn on my shoulders. I gave Mike a dollar, with
instructions to keep Budge in sight, to keep him from teasing the goat,
and to prevent his being impaled or butted. Then I stretched myself on
a lounge, and wondered whether only half a day of daylight had elapsed
since I and the most adorable woman in the world had been so happy
together. How much happier I would be when next I met her! The very
torments of this rainy day would make my joy seem all the dearer and
more intense. I dreamed happily for a few moments with my eyes open,
and then somehow they closed, without my knowledge. What put into my
mind the wreck-scene from the play of "David Copperfield," I don't
know; but there it came, and in my dream I was sitting in the balcony
at Booth's, and taking a proper interest in the scene, when it occurred
to me that the thunder had less of reverberation and more woodenness
than good stage thunder should have. The mental exertion I underwent on
this subject disturbed the course of my nap, but as wakefulness
returned, the sound of the poorly simulated thunder did not cease; on
the contrary, it was just as noisy, and more hopelessly a counterfeit
than ever. What could the sound be? I stepped through the window to the
piazza, and the sound was directly over my head. I sprang down the
terrace and out upon the lawn, looked up, and beheld my youngest nephew
strutting back and forth on the tin roof of the piazza, holding over
his head a ragged old parasol. I roared--

"Go in,