had a sense of leaving myself behind me on the bridge. So vivid was
the impression, that I looked back, half expecting to see myself still
leaning over the iron parapet, looking down into the sunlit water.

It sounds foolish, but I leave it standing, wondering if to others a
like experience has ever come. The little chap never came back to me.
He passed away from me as a man's body may possibly pass away from
him, leaving him only remembrance and regret. For a time I tried to
play his games, to dream his dreams, but the substance was wanting. I
was only a thin ghost, making believe.

It troubled me for quite a spell of time, even to the point of tears,
this feeling that my childhood lay behind me, this sudden realisation
that I was travelling swiftly the strange road called growing up. I
did not want to grow up; could nothing be done to stop it? Rather
would I be always as I had been, playing, dreaming. The dark way
frightened me. Must I go forward?

Then gradually, but very slowly, with the long months and years, came
to me the consciousness of a new being, new pulsations, sensories,
throbbings, rooted in but differing widely from the old; and little
Paul, the Paul of whom I have hitherto spoken, faded from my life.

So likewise must I let him fade with sorrow from this book. But
before I part with him entirely, let me recall what else I can
remember of him. Thus we shall be quit of him, and he will interfere
with us no more.

Chief among the pictures that I see is that of my aunt Fan, crouching
over the kitchen fire; her skirt and crinoline rolled up round her