“Oh, I’m just a dream,” said the little figure.
“Well, what are you coming here for?” asked Teddy; “I’m not asleep.”
“I know you’re not,” said the dream, “and I’m not coming to you. I’m going to a little girl named Harriett.”
“Oh, I know her!” cried Teddy. “She’s my cousin. But why are you her dream? You’re not pretty.”
“I know I’m not pretty,” answered the dream, “and that’s why I’m going to her. She was to have had such a pretty dream to-night, but she ate a piece of plum-cake before she went to bed, so now I’m going to her instead of the other one.”
“What was the other one like?” asked Teddy.
“There it is,” said the dream, pointing toward the boat. And now Teddy saw that another gray figure was in it. As he looked, it slowly and sorrowfully stepped from the boat and came up the beach toward them. It was very beautiful, and in its hand it carried a great bunch of shining bubbles, fastened to a stick by parti-colored ribbons, just as Teddy had seen Italians carrying balloons, only these bubble-balloons were growing and shrinking and changing every moment, just as though they were alive.
As she came toward them the ugly dream frowned and shook his hands at her. “Go away! Go away!” he cried. “There’s no use your following me around this way. You sha’n’t be dreamed to-night.”
“I think you might let me go into her dream with you,” said the pretty dream, sorrowfully. “She didn’t know she oughtn’t to eat the plum-cake.”
“Well, you sha’n’t,” said the ugly dream. “She ain’t going to have any dream but me, and I’m going to look just as ugly as I can. I’m going to do this way,” and the naughty little dream put his thumbs in the corners of his mouth, drawing it wide, and at the same time drew down the outside corners of his eyes with his forefingers, just as Teddy had seen the boys at school do sometimes. Then the dream hopped up into the air and cut a caper. “Ho, ho!” he cried, “won’t it be fun? You can come along and see me frighten her, if you want to.” This last he said to Teddy.