At breakfast he was distraught. Mrs. Ringrose complained. Harry pulled out an envelope, made a note first, and then his apology. Mrs. Ringrose returned as usual to her room, but Harry did not follow her with his pipe. He went to his own room instead, and sat down on the unmade bed, with a pencil, a bit of paper, and a frightful furrow between his downcast eyes. In less than half-an-hour, however, the thing was done: a highly imitative effort in the manner of those verses which he had been saying to himself last thing the night before. The matter was slightly different: the subject was dreams, not delight, and instead of "Spirit of Delight," the dreams were apostrophised as "Spirits of the Night." Then the form of the stanza was freshened up a little: the new poet added a seventh line, rhyming with the second and fourth, while the last word of the fifth was common to all the stanzas, and necessitated a new and original double-rhyme in the sixth line of each verse. Harry found a rhyming dictionary (purchased in his school-days for the benefit of the school magazine) very handy in this connection. It was thus he made such short work of his rough draft. But the fair copy was turned out (in the sitting-room) in even quicker time, and a somewhat indiscreet note written to the Editor of _Uncle Tom's Magazine_, though not on the lines which Mrs. Ringrose had once suggested. A "stamped directed envelope" was also prepared, and enclosed in compliance with _Uncle Tom's_ very explicit "Notice to Contributors." Then Harry stole down and out, and posted his missive with a kind of guilty pride: after all, the deed itself had been a good deal less cold-blooded than the original intention. Mrs. Ringrose knew nothing. She had seen Harry scribble on an envelope, and that was all. She knew how the boy blew hot and cold, and she did him the injustice of concluding he had renounced his vow, but the kindness of never voicing her conclusion. Yet his restless idleness, and a something secretive in his manner, troubled her greatly during the next few days, and never more than on the Saturday morning, when Harry came in late for breakfast and there was a letter lying on his plate. "You seem to have been writing to yourself," said Mrs. Ringrose, as she looked suspiciously from Harry to the letter. "To myself?" he echoed, and without kissing her he squeezed round the table to his place. "Yes; that's your writing, isn't it? And it looks like one of my envelopes!" It was both. Harry stood gazing at his own superscription, and weighing the envelope with his eye. He was afraid to feel it. It looked too thin to contain his verses. It was too thin! Between finger and thumb it felt absolutely empty. He tore it open, and read on a printed slip the sweetest words his eyes had ever seen. "The Editor of _Uncle Tom's Magazine_ has great pleasure in accepting for publication----"