"I understand."
"They were realities---yes, they must have been; people moved and things
came and went in them; my dear mother, whom I had near forgotten; then my
father, stern and upright, the servants, the nursery, all the familiar
things of home. Then the front door and the busy streets, with traffic to
and fro. I looked and marvelled, and looked half doubtfully again into the
woman's face and turned the pages over, skipping this and that, to see
more of this book and more, and so at last I came to myself hovering and
hesitating outside the green door in the long white wall, and felt again
the conflict and the fear.
"'And next?' I cried, and would have turned on, but the cool hand of the
grave woman delayed me.
"'Next?' I insisted, and struggled gently with her hand, pulling up her
fingers with all my childish strength, and as she yielded and the page
came over she bent down upon me like a shadow and kissed my brow.
"But the page did not show the enchanted garden, nor the panthers, nor the
girl who had led me by the hand, nor the playfellows who had been so loth
to let me go.
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