He loved, indeed, everything in this new life--the shapes and colors of furniture and hangings, the kind old nurse, the friendly, laughing maids, the old doctor with his long speeches and short smiles, his bed, his room, the ships, the river, the trees, the gardens--the very sky seemed cleaner and brighter than the sky that had been over the Deptford that Dickie Harding had known. And then came the day when the nurse, having dressed him, bade him walk to the window, instead of being carried, as, so far, he had been. "Where ..." he asked, hesitatingly, "where's my...? Where have you put the crutch?" Then the old nurse laughed. "Crutch?" she said. "Come out of thy dreams. Thou silly boy! Thou wants no crutch with two fine, straight, strong legs like thou's got. Come, use them and walk." Dickie looked down at his feet. In the old New Cross days he had not liked to look at his feet. He had not looked at them in these new days. Now he looked. Hesitated. "Come," said the nurse encouragingly. He slid from the high bed. One might as well try. Nurse seemed to think.... He touched the ground with both feet, felt the floor firm and even under them--as firm and even under the one foot as under the other. He stood up straight, moved the foot that he had been used to move--then the other, the one that he had never moved. He took two steps, three, four--and then he turned suddenly and flung himself against the side of the bed and hid his face in his arms. "What, weeping, my lamb?" the nurse said, and came to him. "Oh, Nurse," he cried, clinging to her with all his might. "I dreamed that I was lame! And I thought it was true. And it isn't!--it isn't!--it isn't!" * * * * * Quite soon Dickie was able to walk down-stairs and out into the garden along the grassy walks and long alleys where fruit trees trained over trellises made such pleasant green shade, and even to try to learn to play at bowls on the long bowling-green behind the house. The house was by far the finest house Dickie had ever been in, and the garden was more beautiful even than the garden at Talbot Court. But it was not only the beauty of the house and garden that made Dickie's life a new and full delight. To limp along the leafy ways, to crawl up and down the carved staircase would have been a pleasure greater than any Dickie had ever known; but he could leap up and down the stairs three at a time, he could run in the arched alleys--run and jump as he had seen other children do, and as he had never thought to do himself. Imagine what you would feel if you had lived wingless all your life among people who could fly. That is how lame people feel among us who can walk and run. And now Dickie was lame no more.