“’I call Aurora to witness that I have died without a falter, grasping a burning spear, to tilt at the malpractice which has sent me mad!’ And I saw that he held in his fast-consuming hand a long roll of journals sharpened to a point of burning flame.

“‘Aurora!’ he cried again, and with that enigmatic word on his lips was incinerated in the vast and towering belch of the devouring element.

“It was among the most inspiring sights I have ever witnessed.”

When Mr. Lavender had completed that record, whose actuality and wealth of moving detail had greatly affected him, and marked it “For the Press-Immediate,” he felt very cold.  It was, in fact, that hour of dawn when a shiver goes through the world; and, almost with pleasurable anticipation he took up his lighted candle and stole shivering out to his pile, rising ghostly to the height of some five feet in the middle of the dim lawn whereon a faint green tinge was coming with the return of daylight.  Having reached it, he walked round it twice, and readjusted four volumes of the history of the war as stepping-stones to the top; then lowering the candle, whose flame burned steadily in the stillness, he knelt down in the grey dew and set fire to an article in a Sunday paper.  Then, sighing deeply, he returned to his little ladder and, with some difficulty preserving his balance, mounted to the top, and sat down with his legs towards the house and his eyes fixed on Aurora’s bedroom-window.  He had been there perhaps ten minutes before he realized that nothing was happening below him, and, climbing down again, proceeded to the aperture where he had inserted the burning print.  There, by the now considerable daylight, he saw that the flame had gone out at the words “The Stage is now set for the last act of this colossal world drama.”  And convinced that Providence had intended that heartening sentence to revive his somewhat drooping courage, he thought, “I, too, shall be making history this morning,” and relighting the journal, went on his hands and knees and began manfully to blow the flames. . . . . .

Now the young lady in the adjoining castle, who had got out of bed, happened, as she sometimes did, to go to the window for a look at the sun rising over Parliament Hill.  Attracted by the smell of burning paper she saw Mr. Lavender in this act of blowing up the flames.

“What on earth is the poor dear doing now?” she thought.  “This is really the limit!” And slipping on her slippers and blue dressing-gown she ensconced herself behind the curtain to await developments.

Mr. Lavender had now backed away from the flames at which he had been blowing, and remained on his hands and knees, apparently assuring himself that they had really obtained hold.  He then rose, and to her intense surprise began climbing up on to the pile.  She watched him at first with an amused astonishment, so ludicrous was his light little figure, crowned by stivered-up white hair, and the expression of eager