in English that it was her
bed-time, walked straight by them both, not seeming to trouble herself
about either of them.

I have been led away from what I meant the portion included in these
brackets to inform my readers about. I say, then, most of the boarders had
left the table about the time when I began telling some of these secrets
of mine, all of them, in fact, but the old gentleman opposite and the
schoolmistress. I understand why a young woman should like to hear these
homely but genuine experiences of early life, which are, as I have said,
the little brown seeds of what may yet grow to be poems with leaves of
azure and gold; but when the old gentleman pushed up his chair nearer to
me, and slanted round his best ear, and once, when I was speaking of some
trifling, tender reminiscence, drew a long breath, with such a tremor in
it that a little more and it would have been a sob, why, then I felt there
must be something of nature in them which redeemed their seeming
insignificance. Tell me, man or woman with whom I am whispering, have you
not a small store of recollections, such as these I am uncovering, buried
beneath the dead leaves of many summers, perhaps under the unmelting snows
of fast-returning winters,--a few such recollections, which, if you
should write them all out, would be swept into some careless editor's
drawer, and might cost a scanty half-hour's lazy reading to his
subscribers,--and yet, if Death should cheat you of them, you would not
know yourself in eternity?]

----I made three acquaintances at a
very early period of life, my introduction to whom was never forgotten.
The first unequivocal act of wrong that has left its trace in my memory
was this: it was refusing a small favor asked of me,--nothing more than
telling what had happened at school one morning. No matter who asked it;
but there were circumstances which saddened and awed me. I had no heart to
speak;--I faltered some miserable, perhaps petulant excuse, stole away,
and the first battle of life was lost. What remorse followed I need not
tell. Then and there; to the best of my knowledge, I first consciously
took Sin by the hand and turned my back on Duty. Time has led me to look
upon my offence more leniently; I do not believe it or any other childish
wrong is infinite, as some have pretended, but infinitely finite. Yet, oh
if I had but won that battle!

The great Destroyer, whose awful shadow it was that had silenced me, came
near me,