prise dawned on his face. Followed a sharp,
convulsive shudder. And in that moment, without warning, he saw Death.
He looked clear-eyed and steady, as if pondering, then turned to Polly.
His hand moved impotently, as if to reach hers, and when he found it,
his fingers could not close. He gazed at her with a great smile that
slowly faded. The eyes drooped as the life went out, and remained a face
of quietude and repose. The _ukulele_ clattered to the floor. One by one
they went softly from the room, leaving Polly alone.

From the veranda, Frederick watched a man coming up the driveway. By the
roll of the sea in his walk, Frederick could guess for whom the stranger
came. The face was swarthy with sun and wrinkled with age that was given
the lie by the briskness of his movements and the alertness in the keen
black eyes. In the lobe of each ear was a tiny circlet of gold.

"How do you do, sir," the man said, and it was patent that English was
not the tongue he had learned at his mother's knee. "How's Captain Tom?
They told me in the town that he was sick."

"My brother is dead," Frederick answered.

The stranger turned his head and gazed out over the park-like grounds
and up to the distant redwood peaks, and Frederick noted that he
swallowed with an effort.

"By the turtles of Tasman, he was a man," he said, in a deep, changed
voice.

"By the turtles of Tasman, he was a man," Frederick repeated; nor did he
stumble over the unaccustomed oath.

THE ETERNITY OF FORMS

A strange life has come to an end in the death of Mr. Sedley Crayden, of
Crayden Hill.

Mild, harmless, he was the victim of a strange delusion that kept him
pinned, night and day, in his chair for the last two years of his life.
The mysterious death, or, rather, disappearance, of his elder brother,
James Crayden, seems to have preyed upon his mind, for it was shortly
after that event that his delusion began to manifest itself.

Mr. Crayden never vouchsafed any explanation of his strange conduct.
There was nothing the matter with him physically; and, mentally, the
alienists found him normal in every way save for his one remarkable
idiosyncrasy. His remaining in his chair was purely voluntary, an act of
his own will. And now he is dead, and the mystery remains unsolved.

--_Extract from the Newton Courier-Times._

Briefly, I was Mr. Sedley Crayden's confidential servant and valet for
the last eight months of his life. During that time he wr