house, adventure in another garden; this one was forever lost to me.
“. . . only,” Mother would add, “you can not go to Delia’s for . . .” she would name a period that yawned to me as black as the abyss. “. . . because you did not come home to-day when you were told.” And still time seemed to me indefinite. For now it appeared that I should never go to Delia’s again.
I thought about it more and more. What was this time that was laid on us so heavy? Why did I have to get up because it was seven o’clock, go to school because it was nine, come home from Delia’s because the clock struck something else . . . above all, why did I have to go to bed because it was eight o’clock?
I laid it before my little council.
“Why do we have to go to bed because it’s bed-time?” I asked them. “Which started first—bed-time or us?”
None of us could tell. Margaret Amelia Rodman, however, was of opinion that bed-time started first.
“Nearly everything was here before we were,” she said gloomily. “We haven’t got anything in the house but the piano and the rabbits that
