came conscious was the smell of
sweet peas. She had always been very fond of these flowers. The air was
soft and warm, and that, too, was pleasant to her. She observed a good
many other things, such as trees and grass; but she did not know where
she was, and she did not see anything she could recognize. You must not
forget that when I say she saw anything, I mean she became conscious of
it. Presently, however, she did perceive something that was familiar,
and if such a thing had been possible her face would have flushed with
pleasure. This familiar object was a sun-dial in the middle of a wide
grass-mound. The sun-dial was of brass. It was very old, and some of the
figures on the round plate were nearly obliterated by time and weather;
but Miss Amanda recognized it. It was the same sun-dial she had always
known in the home where she had been born. But it was not mounted on a
round brick pillar, as when she had known it: now it rested on a
handsome stone pedestal; but it was the same sun-dial. She could see the
place where the upright part had been mended after her nephew John, then
only fourteen, had thrown a stone at it, being jealous of it because it
would never do any work in bad weather, whereas he had to go to school,
rain or shine.

"'Now,' thought Miss Amanda, 'if this is the old sun-dial, and if this
is the mound in front of our house, although it is so much smaller than
I remember it, the dear old house must be just behind it.' But when she
became conscious in that direction, the dear old house was not there.
There was a house, but it looked new and handsome. It had marble steps,
with railings and a portico, but it was another house altogether, and
everything seemed to be something else except the sun-dial, and even
that did not rest on the old brick pillar with projections at the
bottom, on which she used to stand, when she was a little girl, in order
to see what time it was.

"Now Miss Amanda felt lonely, and a little frightened. She had never
been accustomed to finding herself in places entirely strange to her.
She felt, too, that she was there in that place, and could not be
anywhere else even if she wanted to, and this produced in her a
condition which, half a century before, would have been nervousness. But
suddenly she perceived something which, although strange, was very
pleasant. It was a young girl upon a bicycle coming swiftly toward her
over a wide, smooth driveway. Miss Amanda had never been consc