Page:Hardings luck - nesbit.djvu/167

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"TO GET YOUR OWN LIVING"
129

"Where do you want to go to?" said the same soft small voice that had spoken before. But this time Dickie did not reply that he was "not particular." Instead, he said, "Oh, there! I want to go there!" feeling quite sure that whoever owned that voice would know as well as he, or even better, where "there" was, and how to get to it.

And as on that other night everything grew very quiet, and sleep wrapped Dickie round like a soft garment. When he awoke he lay in the big four-post bed with the green and white curtains; about him were the tapestry walls and the heavy furniture of The Dream.

"Oh!" he cried aloud, "I've found it again!—I've found it!—I've found it!"

And then the old nurse with the hooped petticoats and the queer cap and the white ruff was bending over him; her wrinkled face was alight with love and tenderness.

"So thou'rt awake at last," she said. "Did'st thou find thy friend in thy dreams?"

Dickie hugged her.

"I've found the way back," he said; "I don't know which is the dream and which is real—but you know."

"Yes," said the old nurse, "I know. The one is as real as the other."

He sprang out of bed and went leaping round the room, jumping on to chairs and off them, running and dancing.

"What ails the child?" the nurse grumbled;