“Sir,—I am heartily tired of keeping school already, though I have not yet begun, and so vacate in your favor. If any of your pupils turn out clever fellows, tell them how much cleverer they would have been if I had been their master. I consulted my dogs this morning at break of day, and I am pretty sure they thought the confinement of a kennel quite as irksome and unwholesome as I should teaching thick-headed boys in a forlorn, comfortless school-house. When you go to the city during vacation, you can hear of my whereabouts of Mrs. May, for an old fellow living there, by the name of Crosbie, knows all my concerns. Meantime I ask your acceptance of my shaving-apparatus, it is rather too good for you, but as I heard you ask the innkeeper for a razor, I concluded the present would be acceptable. If you ever get a chance I wish you would spit in the face of that solemn ass Barnes, and call Mr. Herman a fool, for me, will you? Yours till death, Godfried Darg.” They laughed very heartily at this strange epistle, and one of the boys rushed up stairs for the shaving-box. It was indeed a beautiful affair, and all the articles were of the very finest quality; but what created great surprise was the contents of a note found on the top of a little steel-box which fitted nicely in one of the divisions. The note ran thus: “Within the little steel-box is the miniature of the lady you are destined to marry, this box you are not to open till you see my two dogs, Howler and Barker, and then by consulting them you will find out the way to open the box, for it has a curious fastening, and cannot be opened but by their connivance unless it is broken, and if broken, the miniature will be destroyed. I think you can depend on yourself in this particular, but be sure to spit in Barnes’ face, and if you could add a tweak of the nose and a kick, you would greatly oblige me. G. D.” Of course it was agreed on all sides that the little box should remain quietly untouched just where it now lay, but they made themselves very merry over the letter and note. As to applying again for the school not one of the family would listen to it, not even if Mr. Barnes came in person to make the offer. “No!” said Davie, the youngest boy; “not if he were to fall down on his knees and beg you to go.” This created a laugh again, and this good-heartedness was very soothing to poor Arthur.