Page:Dream Life - Mitchell - 1899? Altemus.djvu/66

 SS DREAM-LIFE.

and Frank comes in to tell you of the school, and that your old tormentor has been expelled : and you grow into a strong friendship with Frank, and you think of yourselves as a new Damon and Pythias and that you will some day live together in a fine house, with plenty of horses, and plenty of chestnut trees. Alas, the boy counts little on those later and bitter fates of life, which sever his early friendships, like wisps of straw !

At other times, with your eye upon the sleek, trim figure of the Doctor, and upon his huge bunch of watch seals, you think you will some day be a Doctor ; and that with a wife and children, and a respectable gig, and gold watch, with seals to match, you would needs be a very happy fellow.

And with such fancies drifting on your thought, you count for the hundredth time the figures upon the curtains of your bed, you trace out the flower wreaths upon the paper-hangings of your room ; your eyes rest idly on the cat playing with the fringe of the curtain ; you see your mother sitting with her needle-work beside the fire; you watch the sunbeams as they drift along the carpet, from morning until noon; and from noon till night, you watch them playing on the leaves, and dropping spangles on the lawn ; and as you watch you dream.