awoke in a fine
summer's morning, was taken out, and had been replaced by one of
common glass.

I visited, by turns, every chamber--they were all desolate and
unfurnished, one excepted, in which the owner had left a harpsichord,
probably to be sold--I touched the keys--I played some old Scottish
tunes, which had delighted me when a child. Past associations revived
with the music--blended with a sense of _unreality_, which at last
became too powerful--I rushed out of the room to give vent to my
feelings.

I wandered, scarce knowing where, into an old wood, that stands at
the back of the house--we called it the _Wilderness_. A well-known
_form_ was missing, that used to meet me in this place--it was
thine--Ben Moxam--the kindest, gentlest, politest of human beings,
yet was he nothing higher than a gardener in the family. Honest
creature! thou didst never pass me in my childish rambles, without a
soft speech, and a smile. I remember thy good-natured face. But there
is one thing, for which I can never forgive thee, Ben Moxam--that
thou didst join with an old maiden aunt of mine in a cruel plot, to
lop away the hanging branches of the old fir-trees--I remember them
sweeping to the ground.

I have often left my childish sports to ramble in this place--its
glooms and its solitude had a mysterious charm for my young mind,
nurturing within me that love of quietness and lonely thinking, which
has accompanied me to maturer years.

In this _Wilderness_ I found myself, after a ten years' absence. Its
stately fir-trees were yet standing, with all their luxuriant company
of underwood--the squirrel was there, and the melancholy cooings of
the wood-pigeon--all was as I had left it--my heart softened at the
sight--it seemed as though my character had been suffering a _change_
since I forsook these shades.

My parents were both dead--I had no counsellor left, no experience of
age to direct me, no sweet voice of reproof. The Lord had taken away
my _friends_, and I knew not where he had laid them. I paced round
the wilderness, seeking a comforter. I prayed that I might be
restored to that _state of innocence_, in which I had wandered in
those shades.

Methought my request was heard, for it seemed as though the stains of
manhood were passing from me, and I were relapsing into the purity
and simplicity of childhood. I was content to have been moulded into
a perfect child. I stood still, as in a trance. I dreamed that I was
enjoying