I awoke, flushed and happy as a dormouse from its winter bed of leaves. The world was good again, with all its potentialities of love and freedom; the sun was somewhere seeking me; there was no ache, but the sweet ache of memory, in my whole heart and body. Locality, I have said before, has never influenced my temper. I make the only reservation now of liberty to change it at my will. I remained some time, with my hands beneath my head, taking stock motionlessly of my new surroundings. They were odd enough. I lay near the wall, it seemed, of a sort of circular ground chamber or cellar, roofed in at an inexplicable height above me. Twice, at intervals between, projecting corbels appeared to show the one-time existence of upper floors, which, having either rotted away or been removed, had left the chamber of a height quite disproportionate with its ground dimensions. In lieu of stairs, a make-shift ladder went up into the roof at a crazy angle, and disappeared through a trap; but it started from the ground so close to a rude fireplace in the wall, that its butt was scorched, and more than one of the lower rungs snapped in its socket. Over the floor itself were scattered tokens of some late or present occupation--a common table, a rush chair or two, battered saucepans, a greasy gridiron, and, hanging on the walls, a frowzy account of clothes. A line, stretched across a segment of the room, had once held suspended a litter of foul-washed clouts; but the string had broken, and its filthy load been kicked aside or trodden into the floor, half brick half muck, which paved the apartment. There were no windows, but, at irregular intervals, narrow loops such as one sees in old castles; and the single ground opening was a doorway, which let in just such a smear of daylight as served to emphasise the uncleanness. Recognising in all this the reverse of familiar, I let my wondering eyes travel round to the parts more contiguous to my bed, and so gave a little pleased start and smile. There, like guardian posts to my slumber, were the long stilts leaned against the wall, their straps hanging loose; and pendent from a nail close by was the very clown’s dress of my memory. I could have drawn it to me and kissed it; but, contenting myself with conceding to it a sigh of affection, I sank back and closed my eyes. Lying thus deliciously, half-submerged in a very nest of dry fern, and with a heavy cloak for blanket over me, I would delay luxuriously the moment of revelation; but it was very evident, I thought, that Gogo had brought me to some wrecked and deserted mill. Suddenly, unable to rest longer, I peeped. He was going softly about the hearth, preparing something at a little fire, whose every thicker waft of smoke he would jealously dissipate with his hands. He still feared observation, then! Watching him silently, my heart welled up with a gush of love for the dear, patient, faithful monster. “Gogo!” I said softly.