--but never, so as to be distinctly seen and remembered, during my
tender years. There flits dimly before me the image of a little girl,
whose name even I have forgotten, a schoolmate, whom we missed one day,
and were told that she had died. But what death was I never had any very
distinct idea, until one day I climbed the low stone wall of the old
burial-ground and mingled with a group that were looking into a very deep,
long, narrow hole, dug down through the green sod, down through the brown
loam, down through the yellow gravel, and there at the bottom was an
oblong red box, and a still, sharp, white face of a young man seen through
an opening at one end of it. When the lid was closed, and the gravel and
stones rattled down pell-mell, and the woman in black, who was crying and
wringing her hands, went off with the other mourners, and left him, then I
felt that I had seen Death, and should never forget him.

One other acquaintance I made at an earlier period of life than the habit
of romancers authorizes.--Love, of course.--She was a famous beauty
afterwards.--I am satisfied that many children rehearse their parts in the
drama of life before they have shed all their milk-teeth.--I think I won't
tell the story of the golden blonde.--I suppose everybody has had his
childish fancies; but sometimes they are passionate impulses, which
anticipate all the tremulous emotions belonging to a later period. Most
children remember seeing and adoring an angel before they were a dozen
years old.

[The old gentleman had left his chair opposite and taken a seat by the
schoolmistress and myself, a little way from the table.--It's true, it's
true,--said the old gentleman.--He took hold of a steel watch-chain, which
carried a large, square gold key at one end and was supposed to have some
kind of timekeeper at the other. With some trouble he dragged up an
ancient-looking, thick, silver, bull's-eye watch. He looked at it for a
moment,--hesitated,--touched the inner corner of his right eye with the
pulp of his middle finger,--looked at the face of the watch,--said it was
getting into the forenoon,--then opened the watch and handed me the loose
outside case without a word.--The watch-paper had been pink once, and had
a faint tinge still, as if all its tender life had not yet quite faded
out. Two little birds, a flower, and, in small school-girl letters, a
date,--17...--no matter.--Before I was thirteen years old,--said the old
gentleman.--I