If I had only known, when I opened the long-closed door of the past, how fondly I should linger around the old familiar haunts, I am sure that I never should have taken a look back. I intended only to set down the few events that connect me with to-day. I did not know that the child was alien to the man, and that the world in which he lived was not the gray old world I know, but a bright green spot where the sun shone and the birds sang all day long, and the passing cloud left its shower only to make the landscape fairer and brighter than before.  
And here, once more, while all reluctantly I was about to turn the bolt on that other world, comes a long-forgotten scene, and a host of memories that clamor for a place in the pages of my book. I cannot imagine why they come, or what relation they bear to the important 244events of a living world. I had thought them as dead as the of the oldest and most forgotten grave that had long since lost its headstone and was only a sunken spot in the old churchyard.
 
But there is the picture on my mind,—so clear and strong that I can hardly think the scientists tell the truth when they say that our bodies are made new every seven years. I am still a child at the district school. The day is over, and I have come back down the long white country road to the little home. My older brother and sister have come from school with me. As we open the front gate we have an instinct that there is “company in the house”; how we know, I cannot tell,—but our childish vision has caught some sign that tells us the family is not alone.
 
“Company” always brought mixed emotions to the boy. We never were quite sure whether we liked it or not. We had more and better things for supper than when we were alone; we had more things like pie and cake and preserves and cheese, and we did not have to eat so much of the things we liked less, such as bread-and-butter and potatoes and mush and milk. Then, too, we were not so likely to get scolded when strangers were around. I remember that I used to get some of the boys to go home with me, when I had done something wrong that I feared had been found out and would get me into trouble; and we often took some of the children home with us when we wanted to ask permission to do something or go somewhere,—or, better still, we got them to ask for us. These things, of course, were set down on the good side of having company.
 
But, on the other hand, we always had a clean , and had to be much more particular about the way we ate. We had to make more use of our knives and forks and spoons, and less of our fingers; and we always had to put on our boots, and wash our faces and hands, and have our hair combed before we could go in to supper, or even into the front room where the company was. And when we we had to say “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir,” and “Yes, ma’am,” and “No, ma’am.” And we were not supposed to ask for anything at the table a second time; and if anything was passed around the second time and came to us, we were not to take it, but pass it on as 246though we already had enough. And we were always to say “Please” and “Thank you,” and such useless words,—just as though we said them every day of our lives. Sometimes, of course, we would forget, and ask for something without stopping to say “Please,” and then our mother would look sharply at us, as if she would do something to us when the company was gone, and then she would ask us in the sweetest way if we had not forgotten something, and we would have to begin all over and say “Please.”
 
Well, I remember that on this particular evening we all went round to the back door, for we knew there was company in the house; and when we went into the kitchen, our mother told us to be very still, and to wash our feet and put on our stockings and shoes, for Aunt Louisa was there. We asked how long she was going to stay; and she said she was not quite sure, but probably at least until after supper.
 
None of us liked Aunt Louisa. She was old, and had reddish false hair, and was fat, and took snuff, and talked a great deal. She belonged to the United Presbyterian church, and 247went every Sunday, and sat in a pew clear up in front and a little on one side. Father and mother did not like her, though they were nice to her when she came to visit them, and sometimes they went to visit her. They said she came to see what she could find to talk about and then would go and tell it to the neighbors; and for this reason we must be very careful when she was there.
 
Aunt Louisa was a “widow woman,” as she always said; her husband had been killed by a horse many years before. She used often to tell us all about how it happened, and it took her a long while to tell it, and my father said that each time it took her longer than before. She had a little house down a lane about three-quarters of a mile away, and a few acres of ground which her husband had left her; and she used to visit a great deal, calling on all the neighbors in regular turn, a good deal like the school-teacher who boarded around.
 
I remember that we had a nice clean tablecloth and a good supper the night she came, and we all got along well at the table. We said “Please” every time, and our mother never once had to look at us. After supper we went 248into the for a visit with Aunt Louisa. This must have been only a little while before my mother’s death; for I can see her plainer that night than at any other time. I wish I could remember the tones of her voice; but their faintest echo has entirely passed away, and I am not sure I should know them if they were spoken in my ear. Her face, too, seems hidden by a mist, and is faded and indistinct. Yet there she sits in her little sewing-chair, rocking back and , with her needle in her hand and her basket on her lap. Poor woman! she was busy every minute, and I suppose she never would have had a chance to rest if she had not gone up to the churchyard for her last long sleep when we were all so young.
 
Aunt Louisa h............