ong a
yellow country road and ahead of me some one was walking, and somebody
ahead of her, and so on; there were many figures, and they were all
wearing my brown rain-coat and my muslin dress with the pink carnation
figure, in fact they were all Billys, and I knew the point was for me
to catch up with the Billy that was ahead of me. That seemed very
important to me."

"H'm," remarked the count, "an interesting dream. Those are our
mirrored images that become emancipated in our dreams. And now," he
smiled at his daughter, "now you think you have caught that other
Billy."

Billy still kept looking up at the pear-tree, and gently rocked her
head. "Now I am quite happy," she said meditatively, "but perhaps I
ought not to be. Lisa says that any one who has a great grief should
stand before it like a soldier on guard."

Count Hamilcar angrily thrust out his underlip and said sharply, "To
stand before one's follies like a soldier on guard is certainly not
commendable."

Billy did not seem to hear him. She still kept on dreamily talking to
the little golden-yellow pears that hung over her: "And to be
faithless, to be faithless is so terribly villainous."

The count bent forward, lifted his extended index finger in the
sunshine, and said slowly and impressively, "My daughter, provision is
made that we shall not be faithless, but remain true, to our sad or
foolish experiences. They run after us in any case. Perhaps we are
continually changing, and that is well. But the score always remains
the same. To come back to your remarkable dream, when the one Billy has
successfully caught the other Billy, you can be sure that the old Billy
gives all the burdens she has had to carry to the new one to take with
her. That is and must be so."

"All--for ever," said Billy under her breath, and she looked at her
father with a glance of such helpless fear that he dropped his eyes,
for a keen compassion caused him almost physical pain.

"Well, well," he rejoined, "when there are as many Billys as you have
before you, there cannot fail to be many pleasant things to take
along."

"Yes, don't you think lots of good things must still come?" cried
Billy. The count looked up in surprise. He saw that Billy had raised
her arms and clasped her hands over her head, and she was smiling a
wonderfully expectant smile.

"Oh, that's it," he murmured, "why, then, in that case--" He rose,
brushed Billy's cheeks hastily with two fingers, and slowly wa