st.

But the stories my father told me, sometimes odd enough stories to tell
a little girl, as we wandered about the echoing rooms, or hung over
the stone balustrade and fed the fishes in the lake, or picked the pale
dog-roses in the hedges, or lay in the boat in a shady reed-grown
bay while he smoked to keep the mosquitoes off, were after all only
traditions, imparted to me in small doses from time to time, when his
earnest desire not to raise his remarks above the level of dulness
supposed to be wholesome for Backfische was neutralised by an impulse
to share his thoughts with somebody who would laugh; whereas the place I
was bound for on my latest pilgrimage was filled with living, first-hand
memories of all the enchanted years that lie between two and eighteen.
How enchanted those years are is made more and more clear to me the
older I grow. There has been nothing in the least like them since; and
though I have forgotten most of what happened six months ago, every
incident, almost every day of those wonderful long years is perfectly
distinct in my memory.

But I had been stiffnecked, proud, unpleasant, altogether cousinly in my
behaviour towards the people in possession. The invitations to revisit
the old home had ceased. The cousins had grown tired of refusals, and
had left me alone. I did not even know who lived in it now, it was so
long since I had had any news. For two days I fought against the strong
desire to go there that had suddenly seized me, and assured myself that
I would not go, that it would be absurd to go, undignified, sentimental,
and silly, that I did not know them and would be in an awkward position,
and that I was old enough to know better. But who can foretell from
one hour to the next what a woman will do? And when does she ever know
better? On the third morning I set out as hopefully as though it were
the most natural thing in the world to fall unexpectedly upon hitherto
consistently neglected cousins, and expect to be received with open
arms.

It was a complicated journey, and lasted several hours. During the first
part, when it was still dark, I glowed with enthusiasm, with the spirit
of adventure, with delight at the prospect of so soon seeing the loved
place again; and thought with wonder of the long years I had allowed to
pass since last I was there. Of what I should say to the cousins, and of
how I should introduce myself into their midst, I did not think at all:
the pilgrim spirit was