star-babies as yet unborn, as the blue-eyed guard used to call them.

'And I shall miss my supper and bed into the bargain!'

He turned reluctantly from his place beside the lime trees, and
crossed the lawn now wet with dew. The whole house seemed to turn its
hooded head and watch him go, staring with amusement in its many
lidless eyes. On the front lawn there was more light, for it faced the
dying sunset. The Big and Little Cedar rose from their pools of
shadow, beautifully poised. Like stately dowagers in voluminous skirts
of velvet they seemed to curtsey to him as he passed. Stars like
clusters of sprinkled blossoms hung upon their dignified old heads.
The whole place seemed aware of him. Glancing a moment at the upper
nursery windows, he could just distinguish the bars through which his
little hands once netted stars, and as he did so a meteor shot across
the sky its flashing light of wonder. Behind the Little Cedar it dived
into the sunset afterglow. And, hardly had it dipped away, when
another, coming crosswise from the south, drove its length of molten,
shining wire straight against the shoulder of the Big Cedar.

The whole performance seemed arranged expressly for his benefit. The
Net was loosed--this Net of Stars and Thoughts--perhaps to go
elsewhere. For this was taking out the golden nails, surely. It would
hardly have surprised him next to see the Starlight Express he had
been dreaming about dart across the heavens overhead. That cool air
stealing towards him from the kitchen-garden might well have been the
wind of its going. He could almost hear the distant rush and murmur of
its flying mass.

'How extraordinarily vivid it all was!' he thought to himself, as he