One evening Neville was playing alone on the top of the hill when he
noticed that one of the very finest sunsets he had ever seen was just
coming on. The sky in the West, away over the broad country lands, was
filled with little clouds of all sorts and shapes, and they were just
beginning to take on the most wonderful colours.

Neville had often before amused himself with watching clouds and the
strange shapes into which they changed themselves--sometimes like
great mountain ranges, sometimes like sea-waves, and very often like
elephants and lions and seals and all manner of interesting things of
that sort. But never before had he been able to make out so many
animal shapes in the clouds. The sky was almost as good as a Zoo.
There were kangaroos and elephants and a hen with chickens and
wallabies and rabbits and a funny man with large ears and all sorts of
other peculiar shapes.

The sun was sinking behind a distant range of hills, where a golden
light shone out as if through a gateway. It was so much like a great
golden gateway that Neville fell to wondering what might be found on
the other side of it.

Suddenly, right in the middle of all the coloured clouds, he saw one
little cloud which was perfectly white, and, as he watched it, he
noticed that it seemed to be shaped like a small horse. A very small
horse it seemed at that distance; but, as Neville gazed, it grew
bigger and bigger, just as if it were coming toward him very fast, and
he was almost certain he could see its legs moving.

That startled him a little, and so he rubbed his eyes to make sure