different languages, and dominating him—­spirit and body—­by turns.  One of these we will call Edgar Goodfellow—­Edgar the gay, the laughter-loving, the daring, the real, live, wholesome, normal boy; keen for the society of other boys and liking to dance, to run, to jump, to climb, even to fight.  The other, Edgar the Dreamer, fond of solitude and silence and darkness, for they aided him to wander far away from the everyday world to one of make believe created by himself and filled with beings to whom real people were but as empty shadows; but a world that the death and burial of his beautiful and adored young mother and the impression made upon him by those scenes, had tinged with an eternal sadness which hung over it as a veil.

The life of Edgar the Dreamer was filled with the subtle charm of mystery.  It was a secret life.  The world in which he moved was a secret world—­an invisible world, to whose invisible door he alone held the key.  Edgar the Dreamer was himself an invisible person, for the only outward difference between him and his twin brother, Edgar Goodfellow, lay in a certain quiet, listless air and the solemn look in his big, dark grey eyes which his playmates—­bored and intolerant—­took as indications that “Edgar was in one of his moods,” and his foster-father—­eyeing him keenly and with marked displeasure—­as an equally unmistakable indication that he was “hatching mischief.”

There were times when in the midst of the liveliest company this so-called “mood” would possess the child.  He would fall silent; his mouth would become pensive, his dark grey eyes would seem to be impenetrably veiled; his chin would drop upon his hand; he would seem utterly forgetful of his surroundings.  The familiar Edgar—­Edgar Goodfellow—­would have given place to Edgar the Dreamer, who though apparently of the company, would really have slipped through that invisible portal and wandered far afield with the playmates of his fancy.

At such times Mrs. Allan would say, “Eddie, what are you thinking about?” And brought back to her world with a jolt, the boy would answer quickly (somewhat guiltily it seemed to Mr. Allan—­noting the startled expression),

“Nothing.”  It was his first lie, and a very little one, but one that was often repeated; for he that would guard a secret must be used to practice deception.

Mr. Allan would say, “Wake up, wake up, child!  Only the idle sit and stare at nothing and think of nothing.  You’ll be growing up an idle, trifling boy if you give way to such a habit.”

Between the Allans and Edgar the Dreamer a great gulf lay—­for how should a dreamer of day-dreams reveal himself to any not of his own tribe and kind?  Upon Edgar Goodfellow Mrs. Allan doted.  All of her friends agreed with her that so remarkable a child—­one so precocious and still so attractive—­had never been seen, and Mr. Allan was secretly, as proud of his wrestling, running, riding and other out-door