. 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?'

"And then he says,--I call him Louis, for that is the prettiest part of
his name,--Louis says, 'It has to be a part of you. I think of things in
short lines, and after every line I look for the rhyme-tail, and I see
it hanging somewhere. But perhaps your Colonel can help you about that,'
Louis says.

"But I say, 'No! my Colonel cannot help me about that. My Colonel is
good, and I love him with love that grows like a tree, but he cannot
make rhymes. Now, if my Beloved were here, she might be able to help me;
but she is far away, and the high walls shut her out from me. The walls
are very high here, Louis, and my Colonel has gone away now, and I don't
know how soon he will come back; so don't you leave me, Louis, for I am
alone in a sandy waste, and there are no quails. But manna would be
nasty, I think.'"

At this point the listeners could bear no more. Hilda ran into the room,
and had Hugh in her arms, and was laughing and crying and cooing over
him all at once. The Colonel followed, very red in the face, blowing his
nose and clearing his throat portentously.

"Why, darling," Hilda was saying between the kisses, "darling Boy, did
you want me? and did you think your Colonel would leave you for more
than a few little minutes? Of course he would not! And where do you
suppose I came from, Boy, when I heard you say you wanted me? Do you
think I came down the chimney?"

Hugh gravely inspected her spotless attire; the blue serge showed no
wrinkle, no speck of dust.

"I should say _not_ the chimney!" he announced, "But from some strange
where you must have come, Beloved, if it was a place where you heard me
talking when I was not there. Was it the u