ke the two shillings that are in the broken vase."

"May the blessing of my God rest upon you, my dear child," said
Bonaparte; "may He guide and bless you. Give me your hand."

Waldo folded his arms closely, and lay down.

"Farewell, adieu!" said Bonaparte. "May the blessing of my God and my
father's God rest on you, now and evermore."

With these words the head and nose withdrew themselves, and the light
vanished from the window.

After a few moments the boy, lying in the wagon, heard stealthy
footsteps as they passed the wagon-house and made their way down the
road. He listened as they grew fainter and fainter, and at last died
away altogether, and from that night the footstep of Bonaparte Blenkins
was heard no more at the old farm.

END Of PART I.

PART II.

"And it was all play, and no one could tell what it had
lived and worked for. A striving, and a striving, and an
ending in nothing."

Chapter 2.I. Times and Seasons.

Waldo lay on his stomach on the sand. Since he prayed and howled to his
God in the fuel-house three years had passed.

They say that in the world to come time is not measured out by months
and years. Neither is it here. The soul's life has seasons of its own;
periods not found in any calendar, times that years and months will not
scan, but which are as deftly and sharply cut off from one another as
the smoothly-arranged years which the earth's motion yields us.

To stranger eyes these divisions are not evident; but each, looking
back at the little track his consciousness illuminates, sees it cut
into distinct portions, whose boundaries are the termination of mental
states.

As man differs from man, so differ these souls' years. The most material
life is not devoid of them; the story of the most spiritual is told in
them. And it may chance that some, looking back, see the past cut out
after this fashion:

I.

The year of infancy, where from the shadowy background of forgetfulness
start out pictures of startling clearness, disconnected, but brightly
coloured, and indelibly printed in the mind. Much that follows fades,
but the colours of those baby-pictures are permanent.

There rises, perhaps, a warm summer's evening; we are seated on the
doorstep; we have yet the taste of the bread and milk in our mouth, and
the red sunset is reflected in our basin.

Then there is a dark night, where, waking with a fear that there is some
great being in the room, we ru