[Quite a Little Party of Friends to See Him Off]

[Old Principle Laughed at Dudley's Notion]

["Now Then, You Rascals, What Are You Doing to My Donkey?"]

["He's Dead, Ben—He's Dead!"]

I

ON THE GARDEN WALL

They were sitting astride on the top of the old garden wall. Below them on the one side stretched a sweet old-fashioned English garden lying in the blaze of an August sun. In the distance, peeping from behind a wealth of creepers and ivy was the old stone house. It was at an hour in the afternoon when everything seemed to be at a standstill: two or three dogs lay on the soft green lawn fast asleep, an old gardener smoking his pipe and sitting on the edge of a wheelbarrow seemed following their example; and birds and insects only kept up a monotonous and drowsy dirge.

But the two little figures clad in white cricketting flannels, were full of life and motion as they kept up an eager and animated conversation on their lofty seat.