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196 castle, and where Dickie was to meet his cousins, after his seven months of waiting.

You may think that Dickie would be very excited by the thought of meeting, in this workaday, nowadays world, the children with whom he had had such wonderful adventures in the other world, the dream world—too excited, perhaps, to feel really interested in the little everyday happenings of "the road." But this was not so. The present was after all the real thing. The dreams could wait. The knowledge that they were there, waiting, made all the ordinary things more beautiful and more interesting. The feel of the soft dust underfoot, the bright, dewy grass and clover by the way side, the lessening of houses and the growing wideness of field and pasture, all contented and delighted Dickie. He felt to the full all the joy that Mr. Beale felt, in "oofing it," and when as the sun was sinking they overtook a bent, slow-going figure, it was with a thrill of real pleasure that Dickie recognised the woman who had given him the blue ribbon for True.

True himself, now grown large and thick of coat, seemed to recognise a friend, gambolled round her dreadful boots, sniffed at her withered hand.

"Give her a lift with her basket, shall us?" Dickie whispered to Mr. Beale and climbed out of the perambulator. "I can make shift to do this last piece." So the three went on together, in friendly silence, As they neared Orpington the woman