autumn; and we both keenly felt the coming separation. He was to be
absent a year before visiting his home, and that time seemed an age
to our boyish minds. The long midsummer vacation soon arrived, and now,
memory often turns fondly to that happy period. My companion and I
certainly made the most of the time allowed before the coming separation.

Together we visited all our favorite haunts, we angled for fish, we
roamed over the fields and through the woods in the vicinity of Elmwood,
and no day seemed long enough for our varied amusements. I often wished
to invite other of our companions to join our sports, but somehow or
other, if this was the case, Charley's enjoyment at once fled. When (as
was often the case) I would mention some of our schoolmates, with a
view to inviting them to accompany us on some excursion of pleasure, a
cloud would instantly come over Charley's countenance, and he would say
in a petulant tone: "What do you want with them, we can surely enjoy
ourselves without their company," and this reply would at once remind me
of his exclusive and peculiar temperament, (which for the moment I had
forgotten) and to please him I would say no more about it. But for this
one fault of my companion's, and a fault it certainly was, I believe had
I had a brother, I could have loved him no better than I loved Charley
Gray. Previous to my mother's marriage her home had been in Western
Canada; her father died while she was quite a young girl, but her
mother, now far advanced in years, still lived in the old home, some
fifty miles from the city of Hamilton. The affairs of the farm and
household were managed by a son and daughter who had never married, and
still resided in their paternal home. My mother was the youngest in the
family, and had been the pet of the household during her childhood and
early youth; she was many years younger than either her brother or
sister, and they had exercised a watchful and loving care over their pet
sister till the period of her marriage and removal to Eastern Canada.