rness, against the return of
Ulysses. Little did they dream that the hero, once back from Troy and
all its onsets, would scornfully condemn their clumsy but laborious
armoury as rot and humbug and only fit for kids! This, with many another
like awakening, was mercifully hidden from them. Could the veil have
been lifted, and the girls permitted to see Edward as he would appear a
short three months hence, ragged of attire and lawless of tongue, a
scorner of tradition and an adept in strange new physical tortures, one
who would in the same half-hour dismember a doll and shatter a hallowed
belief,--in fine, a sort of swaggering Captain, fresh from the Spanish
Main,--could they have had the least hint of this, well, then
perhaps----. But which of us is of mental fibre to stand the test of a
glimpse into futurity? Let us only hope that, even with certain
disillusionment ahead, the girls would have acted precisely as they did.

And perhaps we have reason to be very grateful that, both as children
and long afterwards, we are never allowed to guess how the absorbing
pursuit of the moment will appear not only to others but to ourselves, a
very short time hence. So we pass, with a gusto and a heartiness that to
an onlooker would seem almost pathetic, from one droll devotion to
another misshapen passion; and who shall dare to play Rhadamanthus, to
appraise the record, and to decide how much of it is solid achievement,
and how much the merest child's play?

[Illustration]

BOOKS BY KENNETH GRAHAME

DREAM DAYS

THE OUTLOOK.--'Nobody with a sense of what is rare
and humorous and true can afford to miss this
volume.'

LITERATURE.--'In "Dream Days" we are conscious of
the same magic touch which charmed us in "The
Golden Age." There is magic in all the sketches,
but it is perhaps in "Its Walls were as of
Jasper"--the beautiful title of a beautiful
story--that Mr. Grahame stands confessed as a
veritable wizard.'

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH.--'Happy Mr. Grahame, who can
weave romances so well.'

THE WORLD.--'Could only have been written by a
poet full of happy imaginings, quaint conceits,
and a certain winsome waywardness which has a
charm of its own. . . . The closing chapter is
full of a tenderness and reticent pathos far
above anything the author has yet a