hem, what did it matter? The mere making had been a joy. To
me this out-of-the-way corner was always a wonderful and a mysterious
place, where my castles in the air stood close together in radiant rows,
and where the strangest and most splendid adventures befell me; for the
hours I passed in it and the people I met in it were all enchanted.

Standing there and looking round with happy eyes, I forgot the existence
of the cousins. I could have cried for joy at being there again. It was
the home of my fathers, the home that would have been mine if I had been
a boy, the home that was mine now by a thousand tender and happy and
miserable associations, of which the people in possession could not
dream. They were tenants, but it was my home. I threw my arms round the
trunk of a very wet fir tree, every branch of which I remembered, for
had I not climbed it, and fallen from it, and torn and bruised myself on
it uncountable numbers of times? and I gave it such a hearty kiss that
my nose and chin were smudged into one green stain, and still I did not
care. Far from caring, it filled me with a reckless, Backfisch pleasure
in being dirty, a delicious feeling that I had not had for years. Alice
in Wonderland, after she had drunk the contents of the magic bottle,
could not have grown smaller more suddenly than I grew younger the
moment I passed through that magic door. Bad habits cling to us,
however, with such persistency that I did mechanically pull out my
handkerchief and begin to rub off the welcoming smudge, a thing I never
would have dreamed of doing in the glorious old days; but an artful
scent of violets clinging to the handkerchief brought me to my senses,
and with a sudden impulse of scorn, the fine scorn for scent of every
honest Backfisch, I rolled it up into a ball and flung it away into the
bushes, where I daresay it is at this moment. "Away with you," I cried,
"away with you, symbol of conventionality, of slavery, of pandering to
a desire to please--away with you, miserable little lace-edged rag!"
And so young had I grown within the last few minutes that I did not even
feel silly.

As a Backfisch I had never used handkerchiefs--the child of nature
scorns to blow its nose--though for decency's sake my governess insisted
on giving me a clean one of vast size and stubborn texture on Sundays.
It was stowed away unfolded in the remotest corner of my pocket, where
it was gradually pressed into a beautiful compactness by the