life of simple happy little
people is, I trust, familiar to you all, and as I want you to _know_ my
boy Ted, to think of him through your own childhood as a friend and
companion, I must not take up too much of the little book, so quickly
filled, with the first years only of his life. And these had now come to
an end--a change, to Ted a great and wonderful change, happened about
this time. Before little Cissy had learnt to run alone, before Ted had
mastered the longest words in his precious "hymn-book," these little
people had to leave their beautiful mountain home. One day when the
world was looking pensive and sad in its autumn dress, the good-byes had
to be said--good-bye to the garden and Ted's shaky bridge; good-bye to
old David; and alas! good-bye to Cheviott's grave, all that was left
of the faithful old collie to say good-bye to; good-bye to the far-off
murmur of the sea and the silent mountain that little Ted had once been
so afraid of; good-bye to all of the dear old home, where Ted's blue
cart was left forgotten under a tree, where the birds went on singing
and chirping as if there were no such things as good-byes in the
world--and Ted and Cissy were driven away to a new home, and the
oft-told stories of their first one were all that was left of it to
their childish minds.

A good many hours' journey from the mountains and the sea near which
these children had spent their first happy years, in quite another
corner of England, there is to be found a beautiful, quiet old town. It
is beautiful from its position, for it stands on rising ground; a fine
old river flows round the feet of its castle rock, and on the other
side are to be seen high cliffs with pleasant winding paths, sometimes
descending close to the water's edge, and it is beautiful in itself. For
the castle is such a castle as is not to be met with many times in one's
life. It has taken centuries of repose after the stormy scenes it lived
through in the long-ago days to make it what it now is--a venerable old
giant among its fellows, grim and solemn yet with a dreamy peacefulness
about it, that has a wonderful charm. As you cross the unused drawbridge
and your footsteps sink in the mossy grass of the great courtyard, it
would not be difficult to fancy you were about to enter the castle of
the sleeping-beauty of the dear old fairy-tale--so still and dream-like
it seems, so strange it is to picture to one's fancy the now grass-grown
keep with the din an