When it returned from its five-
minute flight, the swallows had gone to sleep again, and only the owl
went on hooting softly through the summer darkness. "It really needn't
go on so long about it," thought the robin, then fell asleep again
with its head between exactly the same feathers as before. But the
news had been distributed; the garden was aware; the birds, as natural
guardians of the dawn, had delivered the message as their duty was.
"Why not? Why not?" hummed all night long through the dreams of the
Mill House garden. Weeden turned in his sleep and sighed with
happiness.
Nothing could now prevent it; a day was coming at last, an extra,
unused, unrecorded day. The immemorial expectancy of childhood, the
universal anticipation, the promise that something or somebody was
coming--all this would be fulfilled. This promise is really but the
prelude to creation. God felt it before the world appeared. And
children have stolen it from heaven. Conceived of wonder, born of
hope, and realised by belief, it is the prerogative of all properly-
beating hearts. Everything living feels it, and--everything lives. The
Postman; the Figure coming down the road; the Visitor on the pathway;
the Knock upon the door; even the Stranger in the teacup--all are
embodiments of this exquisite scrap of heaven, divine expectancy.
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