But even when "the loved spots that our infancy knew" are
physically the same, a change has come upon them more saddening
than words can tell. They have shrunken and grown shabbier. They
are not nearly so spacious and so splendid as once they were.

Some one comes up to you and calls you by your name. His voice
echoes in the chambers of your memory. You hold his hand in yours
and try to peer through the false-face he has on, the mask of a
beard or spectacles, or a changed expression of the countenance.
He says he is So-and-so. Why, he used to sit with you in Miss
Crutcher's room, don't you remember? There was a time when you and
he walked together, your arms upon each other's shoulders. But this
is some other one than he. The boy you knew had freckles, and could
spit between his teeth, ever and ever so far.

They don't have the same things to eat they used to have, or, if
they do, it all tastes different. Do you remember the old well,
with the windlass and the chain fastened to the rope just above
the bucket, the chain that used to cluck-cluck when the dripping
bucket came within reach to be swung upon the well-curb? How cold
the water used to be, right out of the northwest corner of the well!
It made the roof of your mouth ache when you drank. Everybody said
it was such splendid water. It isn't so very cold these days, and I
think it has a sort of funny taste to it.

Ah, Gentle Reader, this is not really "Back Home" we gaze upon when
we go there by the train. It is a last year's bird's nest. The
nest is there; the birds are flown, the birds of youth, and noisy
health, and ravenous appetite, and inexperience. You cannot go