Even the school-room was as a
dead thing, though I sat on the old benches and mounted the rostrum
whereon I was wont to "speak my piece" with much trepidation of spirit
and an inexplicable weakness of the knees. I wrote my name on the wall
in an obscure corner, simply because I didn't want it to be stricken
off from the roll entirely, and then turned back into the street with
less regret than I had reckoned on.
Of all the old friends I had known in boyhood, I saw but two besides
Emma--two sisters whose histories were strange and wonderful. They
greeted me as of yore, and we talked of the past with pity mingled
with delight. Dick, my old chum, Emma's soldier-brother, was miles and
miles away: not a boy of all our tribe was left in Heartsease to tell
me the story of the past. I began to be glad that it was so, for the
great gulf that lay between me and the boy I had been seemed to render
up no ghosts but were shrouded in sorrow.
There was one spot I might have visited, but did not: it seemed to me
better to wander to and fro about the dear old parsonage with the
living spirit near me, and to go out again into the world with the
softened influences of that lessened but unbroken circle consoling me,
than to seek the new grave that had not yet had time to clothe itself
with violets, and the sight of which could have given me nothing but
pain.
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