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dream, and that Beale, who had been kind to him and taken him through the pleasant country and slept with him in the bed with the green curtains, was really waiting for him at Gravesend. "And this is all a dream," said Dickie, "and I _must_ wake up." But he couldn't wake up. And the trees and grass and lights and beautiful things, the kindly great people with their splendid dresses, the King and Queen, the aunts and uncles and the little cousins--all these things refused to fade away and jumble themselves up as things do in dreams. They remained solid and real. He knew that this must be a dream, and that Beale and Gravesend and New Cross and the old lame life were the real thing, and yet he could not wake up. All the same the light had gone out of everything, and it is small wonder that when he got home at last, very tired indeed, to his father's house at Deptford he burst into tears as nurse was undressing him. "What ails my lamb?" she asked. "I can't explain; you wouldn't understand," said Dickie. "Try," said she, very earnestly. He looked round the room at the tapestries and the heavy furniture. "I can't," he said. "Try," she said again. "It's ... don't laugh, Nurse. There's a dream that feels real--about a dreadful place--oh, so different from this. But there's a man waiting there for me that was good to me when I was--when I wasn't ... that was good to me; he's waiting in the dream and I want to get back to him. And I can't." "Thou'rt better here than in that dreadful place," said the nurse, stroking his hair. "Yes--but Beale. I know he's waiting there. I wish I could bring him here." "Not yet," said the nurse surprisingly; "'tis not easy to bring those we love from one dream to another." "One dream to another?" "Didst never hear that all life is a dream?" she asked him. "But thou shalt go. Heaven forbid that one of thy race should fail a friend. Look! there are fresh sheets on thy bed. Lie still and think of him that was good to thee." He lay there, very still. He had decided to wake up--to wake up to the old, hard, cruel life--to poverty, dulness, lameness. There was no other thing to be done. He _must_ wake up and keep his promise to Beale. But it was hard--hard--hard. The beautiful house, the beautiful garden, the games, the boat-building, the soft clothes, the kind people, the uplifting sense that he was Somebody ... yet he must go. Yes, if he could he would. The nurs
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