"I should like, too, if you don't mind, to find a toy for a very little
girl. It is her birthday, and I had forgotten."

"It is dreadful to forget," Miss Emily told him, "children care so
much."

"I have never forgotten before, but I had so much on my mind."

She brought forth the Lovely Dreams--"They have been a great success."

He chose at once a rose-colored cat and a yellow owl. The cat was
carved impressionistically in a series of circles. She was altogether
celestial and comfortable. The owl might have been lighted by the moon.

"But why?" Derry asked, "a rose-colored cat?"

"Isn't a white cat pink and puffy in the firelight? And a child sees
her pink and puffy. If we don't it is because we are blind."

"But why the green ducks and the amethyst cows?"

"The cows are coming tinkling home in the twilight--the green ducks
swim under the willows. And they are longer and broader because of the
lights and shadows. That's the way you saw them when you were six."

"By Jove," he said, staring, "I believe I did."

"So there's nothing queer about them to the children--you ought to see
them listen when Jean tells them."