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just above the edge of the world. ‘It is my star—I must reach it before it sets,’ I thought, and started out. Suddenly Dean was beside me—and he, too, was following the star. I felt I must go slowly because he was lame and could not go fast—and all the time the star sank lower and lower. Yet I felt I couldn’t leave Dean. Then just as suddenly—things do happen like that in dreams—so nice—without a bit of trouble—Teddy was beside me, too, holding out his hands to me, with the look in his eyes I had seen twice before. I put my hands in his—and he drew me towards him—I was holding up my face—then Dean gave a bitter cry, ‘My star has set.’ I turned my head for just a glance—the star was gone—and I woke up in a dull, ugly, rainy dawn with no star—no Teddy—no kiss.

“I wonder what the dream meant—if it meant anything. I must not think it did. It is a Murray tradition not to be superstitious.

“This is my last night in Shrewsbury. ‘Good-bye, proud world, I’m going home’—tomorrow, when Cousin Jimmy is coming for me and my trunk in the old express wagon and I will ride back in that chariot of state to New Moon.

“These three Shrewsbury years seemed so long to me when I looked ahead to them. And now, looking back, they seem as yesterday when it has passed. I think I’ve won something in them. I don’t use so many italics—I’ve acquired a little poise and self-control—I’ve got a bit of bitter, worldly wisdom—and I’ve learned to smile over a rejection slip. I think that has been the hardest lesson of all to learn—and doubtless the most necessary.

“As I look back over these three years some things stand out so much more clearly and significantly than others, as if they had a special meaning all their own. And not always the things one might expect either. For instance, Evelyn’s enmity and even that horrible moustache