It showed a long grey street in West Kensington, in that
chill hour of afternoon before the lamps are lit, and I was there, a
wretched little figure, weeping aloud, for all that I could do to restrain
myself, and I was weeping because I could not return to my dear
playfellows who had called after me, 'Come back to us! Come back to us
soon!' I was there. This was no page in a book, but harsh reality; that
enchanted place and the restraining hand of the grave mother at whose knee
I stood had gone--whither had they gone?"
He halted again, and remained for a time staring into the fire.
"Oh! the woefulness of that return!" he murmured.
"Well?" I said, after a minute or so.
"Poor little wretch I was!--brought back to this grey world again! As I
realised the fulness of what had happened to me, I gave way to quite
ungovernable grief. And the shame and humiliation of that public weeping
and my disgraceful home-coming remain with me still. I see again the
benevolent-looking old gentleman in gold spectacles who stopped and spoke
to me--prodding me first with his umbrella.
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