and an abbreviated version of Robinson Crusoe.

The winter and cold wet spring dragged by. Day by day life varied very
little. In the morning after breakfast, if it was fairly fine, a visit
would be paid to Kensington Gardens, a dull business; for the Round Pond
was not visited, and indeed the Gardens were only penetrated as far as
the Palace, with occasional promenades along the flower-walk for a
treat. Treats were important factors in Michael's life. Apparently
anything even mildly pleasant came under the category of treats. It was
a treat to walk on the grass in the Gardens; it was a treat to help to
push Stella's perambulator; it was a treat to have the sponge floating
beside him in the bath, to hum, to laugh, to read, to stay up one minute
after half-past six, to accompany Nurse on her marketing, and most of
all to roll the slabs of unbaked dough down in the kitchen. The great
principle of a treat was its rarity. As anything that had to be asked
for became a treat automatically and as the mere fact of asking was made
a reason for refusing to grant a treat, the sacred infrequency of the
treat was secured. The result of this was that the visit to Kensington
Gardens instead of being the jolly business it seemed to be for other
children, became a tantalizing glimpse of an unattainable paradise.
Michael would stand enraptured by the March winds, every impulse bidding
him run and run eternally through the blowy spring weather; yet if he so
much as climbed the lowest rung of the scaly part-railings, if he
dallied one moment to watch a kite launched on the air, Nanny would haul
him back to the perambulator's side. As for talking to other children,
not even could the magic treat effect that. If Nurse was to be believed,
conversation with strange children was the lowest depth to which human
nature could sink. The enforced solitariness of his life bred in Michael
a habit of contemplation. Much of his morning walk was passed in a
dream, in which he seemed to be standing still while the world of houses
and trees and railings and people swam by him unheeded. This method of
existence led to several unpleasant shocks, as when he walked into a
lamp-post and bruised his nose. Nanny used to jeer at him, calling him
Little Johnny Head-in-air; but Michael was so much used to her
derogatory opinions that he cared very little and made no attempt to
cure himself of the habit, but even encouraged himself to put himself
into these nihilisti