The
air was full of a minute clamour of crickets and murmurings, of the
infinitesimal shoutings of little living things. He went very gently
across the creaking boards, for fear that he might wake the sleeping
house, to the big dark clothes-press wherein his beautiful suit lay
folded, and he took it out garment by garment, and softly and very eagerly
tore off its tissue-paper covering and its tacked protections until there
it was, perfect and delightful as he had seen it when first his mother had
given it to him--a long time it seemed ago. Not a button had tarnished,
not a thread had faded on this dear suit of his; he was glad enough for
weeping as in a noiseless hurry he put it on. And then back he went, soft
and quick, to the window that looked out upon the garden, and stood there
for a minute, shining in the moonlight, with his buttons twinkling like
stars, before he got out on the sill, and, making as little of a rustling
as he could, clambered down to the garden path below. He stood before his
mother's house, and it was white and nearly as plain as by day, with every
window-blind but his own shut like an eye that sleeps.
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