"I was, till last night!" the Colonel replied. "We have seen all the sights, the boy and I, and now we have come to see the sights here on our way home. Well! well! and the first sight I see is the best one for sair een that I know. What a pity I left the boy at the hotel! He was still asleep. We arrived late last night. I went to wake him, and I give you my word, I could as soon have thought of waking an angel from a dream of paradise; the little fellow smiled, you understand, Hildegarde, and—and moved his little arms, and—I came away, sir,—my dear, I should say,—and left him to sleep as long as he would. Where are you going now, my child? have you had breakfast? if not,—"
"Oh, yes, I have had breakfast, dear sir!" said Hildegarde. "And you were thinking, if I had had it, how pleasant for me to go in and surprise that blessed lamb in his crib; now, weren't you?"
"The point, as usual!" cried the Colonel. "Country neighbours learn to know each others' thoughts, they say, but I never believed it, till I had neighbours. Well, shall we go? Now, upon my soul, this is the most surprising and delightful thing that has happened to me for forty years. But you have not told me where you are staying, Hilda, nor why you are here, nor in fact anything; have simply wormed information out of the confiding friend, and remained silent yourself!" and the Colonel looked injured, and twirled his moustaches with mock ferocity.
"I like that!" said Hildegarde. "That really pleases me! Kindly indicate, dear sir, the moment at which I could have got in a word edgewise, since you began your highly interesting remarks! I have been simply panting with eagerness to tell you that I left home yesterday, and arrived in New York at five o'clock in the afternoon; that I am staying with my great-aunt in Gramercy Park; that I am wofully homesick, and that the sound of your voice was the most ecstatic sound I have heard for half a century."
"Ha!" said the Colonel. "Humph! mockery, I perceive! of the aged, too! Very well, Miss Grahame, your punishment will be decided hereafter. Meanwhile, here we are at my hotel, and we will go straight up and wake the boy,—if he seems to be ready to wake, my dear. I am sure you will agree with me that it would be a pity to rouse him from a sound sleep. 'Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care,' you remember, Hildegarde!"
"Yes, dear Colonel Ferrers!" said Hildegarde. "But I don't believe Hugh's sleeve is very deeply ravelled, do you? and indeed, it is high time for him to be awake."
They turned in at a great white marble portal, and the elevator soon brought them to the Colonel's door. He opened it softly with a latch-key, and led the way into the apartment; then paused, and beckoned Hilda to come in quietly.
"Listen!" he whispered. "Hugh is awake!"
They listened, and heard a clear, sweet voice discoursing calmly:
"I have three pillows to my head, though I am not ill. I wish that other boy was here, that was in bed, and made songs about himself, and said it was the Land of Counterpane. He was the Giant great and still, that sits upon the pillow-hill, and I am that kind of giant too. Now I play he is here, and he sits up against that pillow, and I sit up against this. And I say, 'How can you say all the things that come in your mind? I can have the things in my mind, too, but they will not have rhyme-tails to them. How do you make the rhyme-tails?'