The screwdriver was brought, and with it I removed the lock, got into the carriage, and told the driver to take me to Paterson by the hill-road—­one of the most beautiful roads in America.

“Paterson!” exclaimed Budge.  “Oh, there’s a candy-store in that town, come on, Toddie.”

“Will you?” thought I, snatching the whip and giving the horses a cut.  “Not if I can help it.  The idea of having such a drive spoiled by the clatter of such a couple!”

Away went the horses, and up rose a piercing shriek and a terrible roar.  It seemed that both children must have been mortally hurt, and I looked out hastily, only to see Budge and Toddie running after the carriage, and crying pitifully.  It was too pitiful,—­I could not have proceeded without them, even if they had been afflicted with small-pox.  The driver stopped of his own accord,—­ he seemed to know the children’s ways and their results,—­and I helped Budge and Toddie in, meekly hoping that the eye of Providence was upon me, and that so self-sacrificing an act would be duly passed to my credit.  As we reached the hill-road, my kindness to my nephews seemed to assume, greater proportions, for the view before me was inexpressibly beautiful.  The air was perfectly clear, and across two score towns I saw the great metropolis itself, the silent city of Greenwood beyond it, the bay, the narrows, the sound, the two silvery rivers lying between me and the Palisades, and even, across and to the south of Brooklyn, the ocean itself.  Wonderful effects of light and shadow, picturesque masses, composed of detached buildings so far distant that they seemed huddled together; grim factories turned to beautiful palaces by the dazzling reflection of sunlight from their window-panes; great ships seeming in the distance to be toy-boats floating idly;—­with no sign of life perceptible, the whole scene recalled the fairy stories, read in my youthful days, of enchanted cities, and the illusion was greatly strengthened by the dragon-like shape of the roof of New York’s new post-office, lying in the center of everything, and seeming to brood over all.

“Uncle Harry!”

Ah, that was what I expected!

“Uncle Harry!”

“Well, Budge?”

“I always think that looks like heaven.”

“What does?”

“Why, all that,—­from here over to that other sky way back there behind everything, I mean.  And I think that (here he pointed toward what probably was a photographer’s roof-light)—­that place where it’s so shiny, is where God stays.”

Bless the child!  The scene had suggested only elfindom to me, and yet I prided myself on my quick sense of artistic effects.

“An’ over there where that awful bright little speck is,” continued Budge, “that’s where dear little brother Phillie is; whenever I look over there, I see him putting his hand out.”

“Dee ’ittle Phillie went to s’eep in a box and the Lord took him to heaven,” murmured Toddie, putting together all he had seen and heard of death.  Then he raised his voice, and exclaimed:—­