Mrs. Overtheways Remembrances | Page 8

me that," said Ida, earnestly; "I would rather hear
something about you than anything else."
There was no resisting this loving argument. Ida felt she had gained her
point, and curled herself up into a listening attitude accordingly. The
hyacinth stood in solemn sweetness as if it were listening also; and Mrs.
Overtheway, putting her little feet upon the fender to warm, began the
story of ----

MRS. MOSS.
"It did not move my grief, to see The trace of human step departed,
Because the garden was deserted, The blither place for me!
"Friends, blame me not! a narrow ken Hath childhood 'twixt the sun
and sward: We draw the moral afterward-- We feel the gladness then."
E. BARRETT BROWNING.
"I remember," said Mrs. Overtheway, "old as I am, I remember
distinctly many of the unrecognized vexations, longings, and
disappointments of childhood. By unrecognized, I mean those
vexations, longings, and disappointments which could not be
understood by nurses, are not confided even to mothers, and through
which, even in our cradles, we become subject to that law of humanity
which gives to every heart its own secret bitterness to be endured alone.
These are they which sometimes outlive weightier memories, and
produce life-long impressions disproportionate to their value; but
oftener, perhaps, are washed away by the advancing tide of time--the
vexations, longings, and disappointments of the next period of our lives.
These are they which are apt to be forgotten too soon to benefit our
children, and which in the forgetting make childhood all bright to look
back upon, and foster that happy fancy that there is one division of
mortal life in which greedy desire, unfulfilled purpose, envy, sorrow,
weariness and satiety, have no part, by which every man believes
himself at least to have been happy as a child.
"My childhood, on the whole, was a very happy one. The story that I
am about to relate is only a fragment of it.
"As I look into the fire, and the hot coals shape themselves into a
thousand memories of the past, I seem to be staring with childish eyes
at a board that stares back at me out of a larch plantation, and gives
notice that 'This House is to Let.' Then, again, I seem to peep through
rusty iron gates at the house itself--an old red house, with large

windows, through which one could see the white shutters that were
always closed. To look at this house, though only with my mind's eye,
recalls the feeling of mysterious interest with which I looked at it fifty
years ago, and brings back the almost oppressive happiness of a certain
day, when Sarah, having business with the couple who kept the empty
manor, took me with her, and left me to explore the grounds whilst she
visited her friends.
"Next to a companion with that rare sympathy of mind to mind, that
exceptional coincidence of tastes, which binds some few friendships in
a chain of mesmeric links, supplanting all the complacencies of love by
intuition, is a companion whose desires and occupations are in
harmony, if not in unison, with one's own. That friend whom the long
patience of the angler does not chafe, the protracted pleasures of the
sketcher do not weary, because time flies as swiftly with him whilst he
pores over his book, or devoutly seeks botanical specimens through the
artist's middle distance; that friend, in short--that valuable friend--who
is blessed with the great and good quality of riding a hobby of his own,
and the greater and better quality of allowing other people to ride theirs.
"I did not think out all this fifty years ago, neither were the tastes of
that excellent housemaid, Sarah, quite on a level with those of which I
have spoken; but I remember feeling the full comfort of the fact that
Sarah's love for friendly gossip was quite as ardent as mine for
romantic discovery; that she was disposed to linger quite as long to chat
as I to explore; and that she no more expected me to sit wearily through
her kitchen confidences, than I imagined that she would give a long
afternoon to sharing my day-dreams in the gardens of the deserted
manor.
"We had ridden our respective hobbies till nearly tea-time before she
appeared.
"'I'm afraid you must be tired of waiting, Miss Mary,' said she.
"'Tired!' I exclaimed, 'not in the least. I have been so happy, and I am
so much obliged to you, Sarah.'

"Need I say why I was so happy that afternoon? Surely most people
have felt--at least in childhood--the fascination of deserted gardens,
uninhabited houses, ruined churches. They have that advantage over
what is familiar and in use that undiscovered regions have over the
comfortable one that the traveller leaves to explore