t Jack and his brother And now my story's
done."

Nurse twiddled her thumbs with a complacent look, as she smacked her
palate upon the final line.

"That isn't a story," said Michael sullenly. "When will mother be back?"

"In June. That's enough," said Nurse.

Michael went to sleep that night, trying to materialize this mysterious
June. It came to mean a distant warmth of orange light towards which he
waited very slowly. He lay awake thinking of June in the luminousness of
a night-light shielded from his direct vision by a basin. His hands were
muffled in fingerless gloves to prevent thumb-sucking. Suddenly upon the
quiet came a blaze of light. Had he reached June? His sleepy eyelids
uncurled to the scented vision of his beautiful mother. But it was only
gaslight playing and fluttering over the figure of anaemic Annie taking
hairpin after hairpin from her hair. Yet there was a certain interest in
watching Annie undress. Her actions were less familiar than those of
Nurse. Her lips were softer to kiss. Then the vision of June, rising and
falling with Annie's breath, recurred from distances unattainable, faded
again into the blackness of the night, and after a while came back
dazzling and golden. It was morning, and in a chirping of sparrows and
depth of quiet sunlight Michael began to wonder why he was sleeping
beside Annie in a big bed. It was an experience that stood for a long
time in his memory as the first adventure of his life.

The adventure of Annie was a solitary occasion. By the following night
the regular night-nursery was ready for occupation, and the pea-green
vegetation of the walls was hidden by various furniture. Nurse's bed
flanked by the two cots occupied much of its space. Round the fire was a
nursery fender on which hung perpetually various cloths and clothes and
blankets and sheers which, as it was summer at the time, might all have
been dried much more easily out of doors. Pictures were hung upon the
wall--pictures that with the progress of time became delightfully
intimate experiences. They were mostly framed chromolithographs saved
from the Christmas numbers of illustrated papers. There was Cherry
Ripe--a delicious and demure girl in a white dress with a pink sash, for
whom Michael began to feel a romantic affection. There was the picture
of a little girl eating a slice of bread-and-butter on a doorstep,
watched by a fox terrier and underneath inscribed 'Give me a piece,
please.' Michael did n