Delia Dart, however, was a free soul. “_I_ think we begun before bed-time did,” she said decidedly. “Because when we were babies, we didn’t have any bed-time. Look at babies now. They don’t have bed-times. They sleep all the while.” It was true. Bed-time must have started after we did. Besides, we remembered that it was movable. Once it had been half past seven. Now it was eight. Delia often sat up, according to her own accounts, much later even than this. “Grown-ups don’t have any bed-time either,” Betty took it up. “They’re like babies.” This was a new thought. How strange that Grown-ups and babies should share this immunity, and only we be bound. “Who _made_ bed-time?” I inquired irritably. “S-h-h!” said Delia. “God did.” “I don’t believe it,” I announced flatly. “Well,” said Delia, “anyway, he makes us sleepy.” This I also challenged. “Then why am I sleepier when I go to church evenings than when I play Hide-and-go-seek in the Brice’s barn evenings?” I submitted. This was getting into theology, and Delia used the ancient method. “We aren’t supposed to know all those things,” she said with superiority, and the council broke up. That night I brought my revolt into the open. At eight o’clock I was disposing the articles in my play-house so that they all touched, in order that they might be able to talk during the night. It was well-known to me that inanimate objects must touch if they would carry on conversation. The little red chair and the table, the blue paper-weight with a little trembling figure inside, the silver vase, the mug with “Remember me” in blue letters, the china goat, all must be safely settled so that they might while away the long night in talk. The blue-glass paper weight with the horse and rider within, however, was uncertain what he wanted to companion. I tried him with the china horse and with the treeful of birds and with the duck in a boat, but somehow he would not group. While he was still hesitating, it came:-- “Bed-time, dear,” they said. I faced them at last. I had often objected, but I had never reasoned it out. “I’m not sleepy,” I announced serenely. “But it’s bed-time,” they pressed it mildly. “Bed-time is when you’re sleepy,” I explained. “I’m not sleepy. So it can’t be bed-time.” “Bed-time is eight o’clock,” they said with a hint of firmness, and picked me up strongly and carried me off; and to my expostulation that the horse and his rider in the blue paper-weight would have nobody to talk to all night, they said that he wouldn’t care about that; and when I wept, they said I was cross, and that proved it was Bed-time. There seemed no escape. But once--once I came near to understanding. Once the door into Unknown-about Things nearly opened for me, and just for a moment I caught a glimpse.