rider within, however, was uncertain what he wanted to companion. I tried him with the china horse and with the treeful of birds and with the duck in a boat, but somehow he would not group. While he was still hesitating, it came:—
“Bed-time, dear,” they said.
I faced them at last. I had often objected, but I had never reasoned it out.
“I’m not sleepy,” I announced serenely.
“But it’s bed-time,” they pressed it mildly.
“Bed-time is when you’re sleepy,” I explained. “I’m not sleepy. So it can’t be bed-time.”
“Bed-time is eight o’clock,” they said with a hint of firmness, and picked me up strongly and carried me off; and to my expostulation that the horse and his rider in the blue paper-weight would have nobody to talk to all night, they said that he wouldn’t care about that; and when I wept, they said I was cross, and that proved it was Bed-time.
There seemed no escape. But once—once I came near to understanding. Once the door into Unknown-about Things nearly opened for me, and just for a moment I caught a glimpse.
I had been told to tidy my top bureau drawer.
