"I'm frightened to go to sleep," said Sally, battling with fatigue; "I want to be like this always. I hope it ain't a dream--oh, I hope it ain't a dream!" Before she had finished, the Duchess was asleep. "I'll pinch myself hard," thought Sally, "as hard as I can, and if there's a black-and-blue mark on my arm to-morrow morning, I shall know it's real." Sally did pinch herself--so hard that she could not help crying out with the pain, but she obtained her reward on the following morning, when she saw the black-and-blue marks. The joy of the day, however, was so great that as she sat on the pebbly beach, watching the waves creep up and the ships and fishing-boats floating away into wonderland, she found it hard to convince herself that she was not dreaming. At the end of the week she said to Seth: "Daddy, every night I go to bed, I am frightened that I shall wake up and find myself in Rosemary Lane." Thereupon he read her and the Duchess a lecture on contentment and gratitude, not so much needed by Sally as by the Duchess. "I know you're right," said Sally; "it will always be a pleasure to think of, but I shall be awful sorry too, that it didn't last for ever. It can't, Daddy, can it?" "No, my dear, it can't." "I wish I was rich," sighed Sally. "Supposing you had lived a hundred years ago," suggested Seth, with grave humour; and paused. "Well, Daddy. Supposing I did?" "It would be all the same to you whether you had a hundred boxes full of gold or whether you had twopence-halfpenny." Sally was shrewd enough to understand this without having to ask for an explanation. "What do you say to it all?" asked Sally of the Duchess. "I don't care for a hundred years ago," said the Duchess; "I don't know what it means. I care for Now." And she echoed Sally's words, "I wish I was rich." This set Seth pondering, and in his endeavour to extract honey out of unpromising material and to improve the occasion, it is to be feared that he soared above the understanding of his children. In this way: "Did I ever tell you, Sally"--he always appealed to Sally at such times, although he addressed both her and the Duchess--"of a man I once knew called Billy Spike?" "No, Daddy." "He was a friend of mine a good many years ago. Older than me by thirty years was Billy Spike--and he was always Billy, never William, to the day of his death. Nearly everybody who knew him thought he was crazy." "Why?" "Because of one thing he was never tired of saying, 'What I don't get is profit.' That's what sweetened the world for Billy Spike. 'What I don't get is profit,' was always on his lips." "Was _he_ a rich man, Daddy?" "I doubt if Billy Spike ever had twenty shillings in his pocket at one time. I doubt if ever he had a new suit of clothes to his back. I doubt if he ever had quite as much to eat as he could have taken in. He was as poor as a church-mouse." "Why is a church-mouse poor?" asked practical Sally.