In those days, perhaps, he had not called it a dream.

He had not given it a name, and in the quiet early days he had simply greeted, first a protector, then a friend.

But that was all very long ago, when one was a baby and allowed oneself to imagine anything.

He had, of course, grown ashamed of such confiding fancies, and as he had become more confident had shoved away, with stout, determined fingers, those dim memories, poignancies, regrets.

How childish one had been at four, and five, and six! How independent and strong now, on the very edge of the world of school! It perturbed him, therefore, that at this moment of crisis this old dream should recur, and it perturbed him the more, as he lay in bed next morning and thought it over, that it should have seemed to him at the time no dream at all, but simply a natural and actual occurrence.
He had been asleep, and then he had been awake.