iors--which permitted her to be her natural, simple self, and to
show you the real charm of her womanhood. Neglected by the men, not yet
old enough to take to coddling young girls after the manner of motherly
old maids, she found a hearty and genuine pleasure in your boyish
friendship, and you--you adored her. You saw, of course, as others saw,
the faded dulness of her complexion; you saw the wee crow's-feet that
gathered in the corners of her eyes when she laughed; you saw the faint
touches of white among the crisp little curls over her temples; you saw
that the keenest wind of Fall brought the red to her cheeks only in two
bright spots, and that no soft Spring air would ever bring her back the
rosy, pink flush of girlhood: you saw these things as others saw
them--no, indeed, you did not; you saw them as others could not, and
they only made her the more dear to you. And you were having one of the
best and most valuable experiences of your boyhood, to which you may
look back now, whatever life has brought you, with a smile that has in
it nothing of regret, of derision, or of bitterness.

[Illustration]

Suppose that this all happened long ago--that you had left a couple of
quarter-posts of your course of three-score-years-and-ten between that
young lover and your present self; and suppose that the idea came to you
to seek out and revisit this dear faded memory. And suppose that you
were foolish enough to act upon the idea, and went in search of her and
found her--not the wholesome, autumn-nipped comrade that you remembered,
a shade or two at most frostily touched by the winter of old age--but a
berouged, beraddled, bedizened old make-believe, with wrinkles plastered
thick, and skinny shoulders dusted white with powder--ah me, how you
would wish you had not gone!

And just so I wished that I had not gone, when, the other day, I was
tempted back to revisit the best beloved of all the homes of my nomadic
boyhood.

I remembered four pleasant years of early youth when my lot was cast in
a region that was singularly delightful and grateful and lovable,
although the finger of death had already touched its prosperity and
beauty beyond all requickening.

It was a fair countryside of upland and plateau, lying between a
majestic hill-bordered river and an idle, wandering, marshy, salt creek
that flowed almost side by side with its nobler companion for several
miles before they came together at the base of a steep, rocky heigh