It was a very big bed and unusually high. At each corner was a post, supporting the canopy. From where he lay he could watch Mrs. Sheerug. Having disentangled several balls of wool and balanced on the point of her nose a pair of silver spectacles, she had seated herself before the easel and was stitching a yellow chemise on to the timid figure of Joseph. The yellow chemise ended above Joseph’s knees; Teddy wondered whether she would give him a pair of stockings. “I’m getting wet.” The good little hump of a woman turned. She gazed at him searchingly above her spectacles. “Really?” “Not quite really,” he owned; “but almost really. At least my toes are.” “That’s the hot water bottles,” she said. “If you don’t perspire soon you must have some more medicine.” He did his best to perspire. He felt that she had left the choice between perspiring and drinking more of the brown stuff in his hands. Trying accomplished nothing, so he turned his thoughts to strategy. “Will they really be famous?” Again she twisted round, watching him curiously. “Why d’you ask?” “Because----” He wondered whether he dared tell her. Usually people laughed at him when he said it. “Because my father wants his pictures to be famous and he’s afraid they never will be. And when I’m a man, I want to be famous; and I’m sure I shall.” In the piping eagerness of his confession he had thrown back the clothes and was sitting up in bed. She didn’t notice it What she noticed was the brave poise of the head, the spun gold crushed against the young white forehead, and the blue eyes, untired with effort, which looked out with challenge on a wonder-freighted world. The fire crackled. The kettle hummed, “Pooh, famous! Be contented. Pooh, famous! Be content.” At last she spoke. “It’s difficult to be famous, Teddy. So many of us have been trying--wasting our time when we might have been doing kindness. What makes a little boy like you so certain----?” “I just know,” he interrupted doggedly. Then she realized that he was sitting up in bed and pounced on him. Some more of the brown stuff was forced down his throat and the clothes were once more gathered tightly round his neck. His eyes were becoming heavy. He opened them with an effort By the easel a shaded lamp had been kindled; the faery-godmother bent above her work. CHAPTER III--VASHTI It seemed the last notes of a dream. He had been awake for some minutes, but had feared to stir lest the voice should stop. Slowly he unclosed his eyes. The voice went on. He had never heard such music; it was deep and sweet and luring. It was like the golden hair of the Princess Lettice lowered from her casement to her lover. It was like the silver feet of laughter twinkling up a beanstalk ladder to the stars. It was like spread wings, swooping and drifting over a fairyland of castellated tree-tops. Now it wandered up the passage and seemed to halt behind the tapestry of Absalom. Now it grew infinitely distant until it was all but lost.