an Authority, but the most wonderful Authority of all, who came into
their lives a little later with a gradual and overwhelming effect, but
who cannot be mentioned more definitely just now because he has not
yet arrived. The world, in any case, speaking generally, was enormous;
it was endless; it was always dropping things and people upon them
without warning, as from a clear and cloudless sky. But this
particular individual was still climbing the great curve below their
horizon, and had not yet poked his amazing head above the edge.

Yet, strange to say, they had always believed that some such person
would arrive. A wonderful stranger was already on the way. They rarely
spoke of it--it was just a great, passionate expectancy tucked away in
the deepest corner of their hearts. Children possess this sense of
anticipation all the world over; grown-ups have it too in the form of
an unquenchable, though fading hope: the feeling that some day or
other a Wonderful Stranger will come up the pathway, knock at the
door, and enter their lives, making life worth living, full of wonder,
beauty, and delight, because he will make all things new.

This wonderful stranger, Judy had a vague idea, would be--be like at
least--the Tramp; Tim, following another instinct, was of the opinion
he would be a "soldier-explorer-hunter kind of man"; Maria, if she
thought anything at all about him, kept her decision securely hidden
in her tight, round body. But Judy qualified her choice by the hopeful
assertion that he would "come from the air"; and Tim had a secret
notion that he would emerge from a big, deep hole--pop out like a
badger or a rabbit, as it were--and suddenly declare himself; while
Maria, by her non-committal, universal attitude, perhaps believed
that, if he came at all, he would "just come from everywhere at once."
She believed everything, always, everywhere. But to assert that belief