"'And next?' I cried, and would have turned on, but the cool
hand of the grave woman delayed me.

"'Next?' I insisted, and struggled gently with her hand,
pulling up her fingers with all my childish strength, and as she
yielded and the page came over she bent down upon me like a shadow
and kissed my brow.

"But the page did not show the enchanted garden, nor the
panthers, nor the girl who had led me by the hand, nor the
playfellows who had been so loth to let me go. It showed a long
grey street in West Kensington, on that chill hour of afternoon
before the lamps are lit, and I was there, a wretched little
figure, weeping aloud, for all that I could do to restrain myself,
and I was weeping because I could not return to my dear
play-fellows who had called after me, 'Come back to us! Come back
to us soon!' I was there. This was no page in a book, but harsh
reality; that enchanted place and the restraining hand of the grave
mother at whose knee I stood had gone--whither have they gone?"

He halted again, and remained for a time, staring into the fire.

"Oh! the wretchedness of that return!" he murmured.

"Well?" I said after a minute or so.

"Poor little wretch I was--brought back to this grey world
again! As I realised the fulness of what had happened to me, I
gave way to quite ungovernable grief. And the shame and