grow, and heard the summer wind rustling the trees and dreamed—what great dreams they were!" She nodded, with shining eyes. "And then you one day looked over the wall—and you seemed to understand in a moment. Any one else but you, coming out of the big world, would simply have laughed, and would have seen that this was an old carpet, too shabby even for the house—and this a table we couldn't use for anything else—and that a box that no one wanted. And yet in a moment—do[49] you remember?—you knew perfectly what each thing was. It was wonderful!" [49] "I remember." He nodded gravely. "I knew that was the ottoman—and behind it the tapestry; I understood also how nice it was to have coffee in the garden every evening. Arcadia Street doesn't run to coffee—except in the morning." "I had read somewhere—it was in a paper that came to the house—that ladies and gentlemen take their coffee generally on the terrace. Well, of course, we couldn't manage a terrace, and I couldn't quite understand whether it was anything like the terrace you get to round the corner, with the houses in a sort of half-circle, and the little bit of green in front; only somehow I knew it couldn't be quite like that; all I understood was that it was out of doors. So then I understood the best thing I could do was to make the most of the garden; and it really isn't half bad—is it?" "It's a pity it isn't better appreciated," he said. "Father said he didn't understand what I was driving at; and then he always seemed to find the hole in the carpet and to trip over it. And Amelia doesn't really make very good coffee; it's the sort you dare not stir too much." "Poor little Miss Make-Believe!" he said, a little sorrowfully. "I wonder what you would do if the time came when some of your dreams came true, when you didn't have to make-believe any more; when you walked out of this place, and left behind all the shabby pretences of it. I wonder what you would say then?" "That's never likely to happen," she said, with[50] a shake of the head. "Father doesn't seem to belong to the rich side of the family. His sister, who was here to-night—Aunt Julia, you know—has lots of money; she owns houses, you know, and lives in Clapham." [50] "Wonderful Aunt Julia!" he said. "Father has
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