CHAPTER XIII 



THE HALICTI: THE PORTRESS 



T EAVING our village Is no very serious 

 ■*— ' matter when we are children. We even 

 look on it as a sort of holiday. We are go- 

 ing to see something new, those magic pictures 

 of our dreams. With age come regrets; and 

 the close of life is spent in stirring up old 

 memories. Then the beloved village reap- 

 pears, in the biograph of the mind, embel- 

 lished, transfigured by the glow of those first 

 impressions; and the mental image, superior 

 to the reality, stands out in amazingly clear 

 relief. The past, the far-off past was only 

 yesterday; we see it, we touch it. 



For my part, after three-quarters of a cent- 

 ur)^ I could walk with my eyes closed 

 straight to the flat stone where I first heard 

 the soft chiming note of the Midwife Toad; 

 yes, I should find it to a certainty, if time, 

 which devastates all things, even the homes 

 of Toads, has not moved it or perhaps left it 

 in ruins. 



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