gay and
bright; but now it has grown old and we are growing weary, and only you
can bring the brightness and the freshness back to us.

Memory is a rare ghost-raiser. Like a haunted house, its walls are
ever echoing to unseen feet. Through the broken casements we watch the
flitting shadows of the dead, and the saddest shadows of them all are
the shadows of our own dead selves.

Oh, those young bright faces, so full of truth and honor, of pure, good
thoughts, of noble longings, how reproachfully they look upon us with
their deep, clear eyes!

I fear they have good cause for their sorrow, poor lads. Lies and
cunning and disbelief have crept into our hearts since those preshaving
days--and we meant to be so great and good.

It is well we cannot see into the future. There are few boys of fourteen
who would not feel ashamed of themselves at forty.

I like to sit and have a talk sometimes with that odd little chap that
was myself long ago. I think he likes it too, for he comes so often of
an evening when I am alone with my pipe, listening to the whispering
of the flames. I see his solemn little face looking at me through the
scented smoke as it floats upward, and I smile at him; and he smiles
back at me, but his is such a grave, old-fashioned smile. We chat about
old times; and now and then he takes me by the hand, and then we slip
through the black bars of the grate and down the dusky glowing caves
to the land that lies behind the firelight. There we find the days that
used to be, and we wander along them together. He tells me as we walk
all he thinks and feels. I laugh at him now and then, but the next
moment I wish I had not, for he looks so grave I am ashamed of being
frivolous. Besides, it is not showing proper respect to one so much
older than myself--to one who was myself so very long before I became
myself.

We don't talk much at first, but look at one another; I down at his
curly hair and little blue bow, he up sideways at me as he trots. And
some-how I fancy the shy, round eyes do not altogether approve of me,
and he heaves a little sigh, as though he were disappointed. But after
awhile his bashfulness wears off and he begins to chat. He tells me
his favorite fairy-tales, he can do up to six times, and he has a
guinea-pig, and pa says fairy-tales ain't true; and isn't it a pity?
'cos he would so like to be a knight and fight a dragon and marry a
beautiful princess. But he takes a more practical view of life