“You do, every day. The sky is beautiful, the stars, and moonlit nights, and then the birds, the flowers, the trees⁠—they’re all beautiful. Look out of the window⁠—there’s beauty for you, Jon.”

“Oh! yes, that’s the view. Is that all?”

“All? no. The sea is wonderfully beautiful, and the waves, with their foam flying back.”

“Did you rise from it every day, Mum?”

His mother smiled. “Well, we bathed.”

Little Jon suddenly reached out and caught her neck in his hands.

“ I know ,” he said mysteriously, “you’re it, really, and all the rest is make-believe.”

She sighed, laughed, said: “Oh! Jon!”