He felt wakeful and rather restless. He had a curious, excited sense of being surrounded by marvellous things. If Pouncer had begun to talk, if the mirror on the wall, which still glimmered dimly in the half-darkness, had begun to sing its reedy silvery rhymes, he would perhaps not have been greatly astonished. At any rate, he thought he would not. The cool summer night seemed to stream into his soul. He loved it. He loved the dim shadowy trees, the stars, the sky――loved them in a way he loved people at certain moments, with a desire to put his arms about them and kiss them. Unconsciously, he loved the spirit that was behind them――that great eternal mother who sang to him while he was waking, and through his dreams. He knew the story of Tobias and his dog and the angel, and he longed for the angel to come. The angel, with a great rustling of splendid wings! But he would rather have a smaller angel, one about his own size, one like Tobias himself in the Perugino picture at home, from which he had learned the story. He would play on his silver flute for a signal, and Grif would go down to meet him. He wondered what his name would be? The only angel names he knew were Michael and Raphael and Gabriel. It was Raphael who had come to Tobias. _His_ angel would perhaps be Michael. The story was written somewhere in the Bible, though he had never been able to find it. His mother had told him that it was only in old Bibles, and he had never found one old enough. To be sure, his dog was not a bit like the dog in the picture, and _he_ was not like Tobias: but what matter? He wondered if the angel would be frightened of Pouncer, supposing he were a very young angel. Most people _were_, at first: and he laughed a little as he imagined their meeting, for Pouncer would be sure to want to examine the wings. Then he yawned, stretched himself, and making a bound on to the bed slid between the cool white sheets. Next moment there was another bound, and a dull thud. “Oh!” said Grif, for most of the breath had been knocked out of him. “You can’t get under, you know,” he expostulated, as Pouncer pulled at the bed-clothes with his fore-paws, “we’ll be far too hot!” A compromise was effected by everything but a sheet sliding on to the floor. And very soon Grif grew drowsy. The wind had arisen a little, and he could hear the faint soughing of the trees――a lulling, dreamy music. Then, just as he was dropping asleep, he heard another music quite distinctly, and if it had not been that something seemed to hold him back he would have sprung out of bed. For what he had heard――whether dreaming or waking――was the low clear note of a flute. CHAPTER V THE GARDEN DOOR ‘I have been here before, But when or how I cannot tell: I know the grass beyond the door, The sweet keen smell, The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.’