"Yes, a long, long time."

"That's because you didn't want me. You got on so well without me."

"I didn't forget about you," she said. "But I asked mummy about you
once, and she said you were all nonsense, and I wasn't to think things
like that."

"Ah! your mother's forgotten altogether. She knew me once, but she
hasn't wanted me for a very, very long time. She'll see me again,
though, one day."

"I'm so glad you've come. You won't go away again now, will you?"

"I never go away," he said. "I'm always here. I've seen everything
you've been doing, and a very dull time you've been making of it."

He talked to her and told her about some of the things the other
children in the Square were doing. She was interested a little, but not
very much; she still thought a great deal more about herself than about
anything or anybody else.

"Do they all love you?" she said.

"Oh, no, not at all. Some of them think I'm horrid. Some of them forget
me altogether, and then I never come back, until just at the end. Some
of them only want me when they're in trouble. Some, very soon, think it
silly to believe in me at all, and the older they grow the less they
believe, generally. And when I do come they won't see me, they make up