me in the midst of them; not a holiday or a festival of any kind is
noted in the calendar of their lives, but Grandmamma is the first to
be sent for. Still, of necessity, I pass much of my time alone; and
old age is given to reverie quite as much as youth. I can remember a
time--long, long ago--when in the twilight of a summer evening it
was a luxury to sit apart with closed eyes; and, heedless of the
talk that went on in the social circle from which I was withdrawn,
indulge in all sorts of fanciful visions. Then my dream-people were
all full-grown men and women. I do not recollect that I ever thought
about children until I possessed some of my own. Those waking
visions were very sweet--sweeter than the realities of life that
followed; but they were neither half so curious nor half so
wonderful as the dreams that sometimes haunt me now. The imagination
of the old is not less lively than that of the young: it is only
less original. A youthful fancy will create more new images; the
mind of age requires materials to build with: these supplied, the
combinations it is capable of forming are endless. And so were born
my dream-children.

Has it never occurred to you, mothers and fathers, to wonder what
has become of your children's lost ages? Look at your little boy of
five years old. Is he at all, in any respect, the same breathing
creature that you beheld three years back? I think not. Whither,
then, has the sprite vanished? In some hidden fairy nook, in some
mysterious cloud-land he must exist still. Again, in your
slim-formed girl of eight years, you look in vain for the sturdy elf
of five. Gone? No; that cannot be--'a thing of beauty is a joy for
ever.' Close your eyes: you have her there! A breeze-like, sportive,
buoyant thing; a thing of breathing, laughing, unmistakable life;
she is mirrored on your retina as plainly as ever was dancing