I was feeling blithe, almost jocund. I put a match to my cigar, and just then the morning’s mail was han­ded in. The first superscription I glanced at was in a handwriting that sent a thrill of pleasure through and through me. It was Aunt Mary’s; and she was the per­son I loved and honored most in all the world, outside of my own household. She had been my boyhood’s idol; maturity, which is fatal to so many enchantments, had not been able to dislodge her from her pedestal; no, it had only justified her right to be there, and placed her dethronement permanently among the impossibilities...