Page:Hardings luck - nesbit.djvu/187

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BURIED TREASURE
145

felt itself drawn more and more to Mr. Beale. Mr. Beale, the tramp, who had been kind to him when no one else was. Mr. Beale, the tramp and housebreaker.

So when the nurse took him, tired with new happinesses, to that beautiful tapestried room of his, he roused himself from his good soft sleepiness to say—

"Nurse, you know a lot of things, don't you?"

"I know what I know," she answered, undoing buttons with speed and authority.

"You know that other dream of mine—that dream of mine, I mean, the dream of a dreadful place?"

"And then?"

"Could I take anything out of this dream—I mean out of this time into the other one?"

"You could, but you must bring it back when you come again. And you could bring things thence. Certain things: your rattle, your moon-seeds, your seal."

He stared at her.

"You do know things," he said; "but I want to take things there and leave them there."

She knitted thoughtful brows.

"There's three hundred thick years between now and then," she said. "Oh, yes, I know. And if you held it in your hand, you'd lose it like as not in some of the years you go through. Money's mortal heavy and travels slow. Slower than the soul of you, my lamb.