[Illustration: "IT HURT, BUT DICKIE LIKED IT" [_Page 157_] "Ah, yes, indeed," said the father; "put them up in the bag, boy. They are thine own to thee, to spend as thou wilt." "Not unwisely," said the mother gently. "As he wills," the father firmly said; "wisely or unwisely. As he wills. And none," he added, "shall ask how they be spent." The lady frowned; she was a careful housewife, and twenty gold pieces were a large sum. "I will not waste it," said Dickie. "Mother, you may trust me not to waste it." It was the happiest moment of his life to Dickie. The little horse--the gold pieces.... Yes, but much more, the sudden, good, safe feeling of father and mother and little brother; of a place where he belonged, where he loved and was loved. And by his equals. For he felt that, as far as a child can be the equal of grown people, he was the equal of these. And Beale was not his equal, either in the graces of the body or in the inner treasures of mind and heart. And hitherto he had loved only Beale; had only, so far as he could remember, been loved by Beale and by that shadowy father, his "Daddy," who had died in hospital, and dying, had given him the rattle, his Tinkler, that was Harding's Luck. And in the very heart of that happiest moment came, like a sharp dagger prick, the thought of Beale. What wonders could be done for Beale with those twenty-five gold sovereigns? For Dickie thought of them just as sovereigns--and so they were. And as these people who loved him, who were his own, drew nearer and nearer to his heart--his heart, quickened by love of them, felt itself drawn more and more to Mr. Beale. Mr. Beale, the tramp, who had been kind to him when no one else was. Mr. Beale, the tramp and housebreaker. So when the nurse took him, tired with new happinesses, to that beautiful tapestried room of his, he roused himself from his good soft sleepiness to say-- "Nurse, you know a lot of things, don't you?" "I know what I know," she answered, undoing buttons with speed and authority. "You know that other dream of mine--that dream of mine, I mean, the dream of a dreadful place?" "And then?" "Could I take anything out of this dream--I mean out of this time into the other one?" "You could, but you must bring it back when you come again. And you could bring things thence. Certain things: your rattle, your moon-seeds, your seal." He stared at her. "You _do_ know things," he said; "but I want to take things there and leave them there." She knitted thoughtful brows. "There's three hundred thick years between now and then," she said. "Oh, yes, I know. And if you held it in your hand, you'd lose it like as not in some of the years you go through. Money's mortal heavy and travels slow. Slower than the soul of you, my lamb. Some one would have time to see it and snatch it and hold to it." "Isn't there any way?" Dickie asked, insisting to himself that he wasn't sleepy.