he
stairs, and Aunt M'riar came running down. "Where's the * * * cash?"
said he.

"It's all I've got," said poor Aunt M'riar. She handed the purse to
him, and he caught it and slipped it in a breast-pocket, and was out in
the Court in a moment, running, without another word. He vanished into
the darkness.

Five minutes later, Uncle Mo, escaping from Mrs. Tapping, came down the
Court, and found the front-door open and no light in the house. He
nearly tumbled over Aunt M'riar, in a swoon, or something very like it,
in the chair by the door.

CHAPTER II

HOW ADRIAN TORRENS COULD SING WITHOUT WINCING. FIGARO. DICTATION OF
LETTERS. HOW ADRIAN BROKE DOWN. THE LERNAEAN HYDRA'S EYE-PEEPS. HOW
ADRIAN COULD SEE NOTHING IN ANY NUMBER OF LOOKING-GLASSES. HOW
GWEN, IN SPITE OF APPEARANCES, HELD TO THE SOLEMN COMPACT. SIR
MERRIDEW'S TREACHERY. SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS. HOW GWEN HAD BEEN TO LOOK
AT ARTHUR'S BRIDGE. A KINKAJOU IS NOT A CARCAJOU. OF THE
PECULIARITIES OF FIRST-CLASS SERVANTS. MRS. PICTURE'S STORY
DIVULGED BY GWEN. HOW DAVE'S RIVAL GRANNIES WERE SAFEST APART

Old folk and candles burn out slowly at the end. But before that end
comes they flicker up, once, twice, and again. The candle says:--"Think
of me at my best. Remember me when I shone out thus, and thus; and never
guttered, nor wanted snuffing. Think of me when you needed no other
light than mine, to look in Bradshaw and decide that you had better go
early and ask at the Station." Thus says the candle.

And the old man says to the old woman, and she says it back to
him:--"Think of me in the glorious days when we were dawning on each
other; of that most glorious day of all when we found each other out,
and had a tiff in a week and a reconciliation in a fortnight!" Then each
is dumb for a while, and life ebbs slowly, till some chance memory stirs
among the embers, and a bright spark flickers for a moment in the dark.
The candle dies at last, and smells, and mixes with the elements. And
some say you and I will do the very same--die and go out. Possibly! Just
as you like! Have it your own way.

It is even so with the Old Year in his last hours. Is ever an October so
chill that he may not bid you suddenly at midday to come out in the
garden and recall, with him, what it was like in those Spring days when
the first birds sang; those Summer days when the hay-scent was in
Cheapside, and a great many roses had not been eaten b