of fancy as a napkin is of red corpuscles; they put their pennies
into a tin bank, and they have won all the marbles and jack-
stones in the neighborhood. They do not believe in Santa Claus
or in fairies or in witches; they know that two nickels make a
dime, and their golden rule is to do others as others would do
them. The other boy (he has been christened Matthew, after me)
has a pair of large, round, deep-blue eyes, expressive of all
those emotions which a keen, active fancy begets.

Matthew can never get his fill of fairy tales, and how the dear
little fellow loves Santa Claus! He sees things at night; he
will not go to bed in the dark; he hears and understands what the
birds and crickets say, and what the night wind sings, and what
the rustling leaves tell. Wherever Matthew goes he sees
beautiful pictures and hears sweet music; to his impressionable
soul all nature speaks its wisdom and its poetry. God! how I
love that boy! And he shall never starve! A goodly share of
what I have shall go to him! But this clause in my will, which
the Judge recently drew for me, will, I warrant me, give the dear
child the greatest happiness:

``Item. To my beloved grandnephew and namesake, Matthew, I do
bequeath and give (in addition to the lands devised and the
stocks, bonds and moneys willed to him, as hereinabove specified)
the two mahogany bookcases numbered 11 and 13, and the contents
thereof, being volumes of fairy and folk tales of all nations,
and dictionaries and other treatises upon demonology, witchcraft,
mythology, magic and kindred subjects, to be his, his heirs, and
his assigns, forever.''