possession and helpful to my happiness.  It was delightful to pull the bedclothes over my shoulders and conceive the feelings of a small boy who should ride to town in a jolting train, walk through a hundred kinds of dirt and a hundred disgusting smells to win to prison at last, where he should perform meaningless tasks in the distressing society of five hundred mocking apes.  It was pleasant to see the morning sun and feel no sickness in my stomach, no sense of depression in my tired brain.  Across the room my brother gurgled and choked in his sleep, and in some subtle way contributed to my ecstasy of tranquillity.  I was no longer concerned for the duration of my happiness.  I felt that this peace that I had desired so long must surely last for ever.

To the grown-up folk who came to see us during the day—­the doctor, certain germ-proof unmarried aunts, truculently maternal, and the family itself—­my brother’s case was far more interesting than mine because he had caught the measles really badly.  I just had them comfortably; enough to be infectious, but not enough to feel ill, so I was left in pleasant solitude while the women competed for the honour of smoothing my brother’s pillow and tiptoeing in a fidgeting manner round his bed.  I lay on my back and looked with placid interest at the cracks in the ceiling.  They were like the main roads in a map, and I amused myself by building little houses beside them—­houses full of books and warm hearthrugs, and with a nice pond lively with tadpoles in the garden of each.  From the windows of the houses you could watch all the traffic that went along the road, men and women and horses, and best of all, the boys going to school in the morning—­boys who had not done their homework and who would be late for prayers.  When I talked about the cracks to my brother he said that perhaps the ceiling would give way and fall on our heads.  I thought about this too, and found it quite easy to picture myself lying in the bed with a smashed head, and blood all over the pillow.  Then it occurred to me that the plaster might smash me all over, and my impressions of Farringdon Meat Market added a gruesome vividness to my conception of the consequences.  I always found it pleasant to imagine horrible things; it was only the reality that made me sick.

Towards nightfall I became a little feverish, and I heard the grown-ups say that they would give me some medicine later on.  Medicine for me signified the nauseous powders of Dr. Gregory, so I pretended to be asleep every time anyone came into the room, in order to escape my destiny, until at last some one stood by my bedside so long that I became cramped and had to pretend to wake up.  Then I was given the medicine, and found to my surprise that it was delicious and tasted of oranges.  I felt that there had been a mistake somewhere, but my head sat a little heavily on my shoulders, and I would not trouble to fix the responsibility.  This time I fell asleep