He went very gently across the creaking boards, for fear that he
might wake the sleeping house, to the big dark clothes-press
wherein his beautiful suit lay folded, and he took it out garment
by garment and softly and very eagerly tore off its tissue-paper
covering and its tacked protections, until there it was, perfect
and delightful as he had seen it when first his mother had given it
to him--a long time it seemed ago. Not a button had tarnished, not
a thread had faded on this dear suit of his; he was glad enough for
weeping as in a noiseless hurry he put it on. And then back he
went, soft and quick, to the window and looked out upon the garden
and stood there for a minute, shining in the moonlight, with his
buttons twinkling like stars, before he got out on the sill and,
making as little of a rustling as he could, clambered down to the
garden path below. He stood before his mother's house, and it was
white and nearly as plain as by day, with every window-blind but
his own shut like an eye that sleeps. The trees cast still shadows
like intricate black lace upon the wall.

The garden in the moonlight was very different from the garden
by day; moonshine was tangled in the hedges and stretched in
phantom cobwebs from spray to spray. Every flower was gleaming
white or crimson black, and the air was aquiver with the thridding
of small crickets and nightingales singing unseen in the depths of
the trees.

There was no darkness in the world, but only warm, mysterious
shadows; and all the leaves and spikes were edged and lined with
iridescent jewels of dew. The night was warmer than any night had
ever been, the heavens by some miracle at once vaster and nearer,
and spite of the great ivory-tinted moon that ruled the world, the