e as clear as a
clarion. I paused and laughed aloud. I was mad with joy; an exquisite
thrill ran through me; it seemed to me that the most delicious moment
of my life had come.

I entered the village a boy again, with all the wild ambition of a boy
and with a boy's roguish spirit. I resolved to play upon them at the
parsonage. If Ellen were not at the gate waiting for me, I would enter
as a stranger and remain a season before throwing off disguise. I
would cunningly lead the conversation from topic to topic until we
came naturally to the past, and there in the past my shadow would
appear, and then at the right moment I would throw myself at Ellen's
feet and bury my head in her lap and weep for very joy.

These dreams beguiled me as I drew near the village. My step was
buoyant; I scarcely felt the weight of my portmanteau; I was drunk
with expectation and delight. In the village I found the streets and
houses and signs for the most part unchanged, but I looked in vain for
a familiar face. A few lads were playing about "the corners," and when
I saw them it suddenly occurred to me that all those youngsters under
fifteen were not born when I was a school-boy in Heartsease. I turned
away from them with a feeling of unutterable disappointment. Why
should not all my playmates be married or dead or have moved out of
the village if changes had come to it? I had not thought much of
change in this connection, and it was a hard blow.

A faint flush was in the evening sky: it was the afterglow, and in its
light I pressed onward toward the parsonage. A hollow in the road,
through which a stream rippled, lay between me and the grove that
sheltered Ellen's home: I hastened down it, and began climbing the
easy ascent on the other side of the stream. I seemed to grow years
older with every step I took, for I knew that the change which comes
to all must have come to me in like measure, though I was a boy again
when I came up the road laughing and heard the first sweet village
voice.

There was no form at the gate awaiting me, but the house was quite
unaltered, and I knew every leaf in the garden. The flush in the sky
had turned to gold and the air throbbed with light as I hid my
portmanteau under the rosebush by the gate and stole up to the
study-door. I would not give so palpable a clew to my identity as
that: I wished to appear like one who had dropped in for a moment to
ask the hour or the loan of a late journal. I rapped at the s