“Tommy Tregennis,” said the Blue Lady, throwing her arms round the dejected figure still kneeling on the bed, but no longer bobbing up and down. “Tommy Tregennis, if you go tightly to sleep, now at once, I shouldn’t be at all surprised if that wooden horse turned out to be for you, and not for Jimmy Prynne at all.”
At once Tommy lay down in bed and screwed up his eyes. Then, rubbing his forehead, “There ain’t no sleep there,” he said.
So the Blue Lady held one hot hand in hers, and sitting on the side of the cot sang many a nursery rhyme.
“Hush-a-bye, baby,” was sleepily demanded a second time.
“Hush-a-bye, baby, thy cradle is green,
Thy father’s a nobleman, thy mother’s a queen;
Thy sister’s a lady and wears a gold ring,
And Johnnie’s a horseman, and rides for the king.”
“Was the horse called Dobbin?” Tommy asked, but before the answer came he was riding a kicking wooden steed in the wonderful land of dreams.