he had been ordered for the purpose of disciplining his will and
character, or for punishment, he was far beyond the city's limits
roaming the woods, the fields, or the river-banks--joyously, and without
a prick of conscience (for all his disobedience) feeding his growing
soul upon the beauties of tree, and sky, and cliff, and water-fall.

And so, in spite of the melancholy moods in which he was occasionally
plunged by the bitterness which had found lodgment in his breast, the
summer was upon the whole a happy one to the boy. He was so young and
the world was so beautiful! He could not remember always to be unhappy.
Edgar Goodfellow, as well as Edgar the Dreamer, revelled in the world of
Out-of-Door. To the one all manner of muscular sport and exercise was
as the breath of his nostrils; to the other, whose favorite stories were
ancient myths and fairy-tales, all natural phenomena possessed vivid
personality. He loved to trace pictures in the clouds. In the rustling
of corn or the stirring of leaves in the trees, or in the sound of
running waters he heard voices which spoke to him of delightsome things,
bringing to his full, grey eyes, as he hearkened, a soft, romantic look,
and touching his lips and his cheeks with a radiant spirituality.

The cottage, on Clay Street, to which the Allans had removed soon after
their return from England, was in a quiet part of the town. The window
of Edgar's own, quaint little room in the dormer roof, with its shelving
walls, gave him a fair view of the sky, and brought him sweet airs
wafted across the garden of old-fashioned flowers below. Here, such
hours as he spent from choice or by command were not lonely, for,
sitting by the little window, many a story or poem was thought out; or
buried in some favorite book his thoughts would be borne away as if on
wings to a world where imagination was king.