Gray's _Elegy_ into French; he had not got very far, and seemed to be
stumped by the line--

_"And leaves the world to darkness and to me."_

Mimsey was silently looking over his other shoulder, her thumb in her
mouth, one arm on the back of his chair. She seemed to be stumped also:
it was an awkward line to translate.

I stooped and put my hand to Medor's nose, and felt his warm breath. He
wagged his rudiment of a tail, and whimpered in his sleep. Mimsey said--

"Regarde Medor, comme il remue la queue! _C'est le Prince Charmant qui
lui chatouille le bout du nez._"

Said my mother, who had not spoken hitherto: "Do speak English, Mimsey,
please."

Oh, my God! My mother's voice, so forgotten, yet so familiar, so
unutterably dear! I rushed to her, and threw myself on my knees at her
feet, and seized her hand and kissed it, crying, "Mother, mother!"

A strange blur came over everything; the sense of reality was lost. All
became as a dream--a beautiful dream--but only a dream; and I woke.

* * * * *

I woke in my small hotel bedroom, and saw all the furniture, and my hat
and clothes, by the light of a lamp outside, and heard the ticking of
the clock on the mantel-piece, and the rumbling of a cart and cracking