Strange sensations, those which come to a man when he visits, after a long lapse of years, the places he knew best in childhood. The changes. The things which are unchanged. The familiar unfamiliarity. The vivid recollections which loom suddenly, like silent ships, from out the fog of things forgotten. In that house over there lived a boy named Ben Ford, who moved away--to where? And Gertie Hoyt, his cousin, lived next door. She had a great thick braid of golden hair. But where is Guy Hardy's house? Where is the Lonergans'--the Lonergans who used to have the goat and wagon? How can those houses be so completely gone? Were they not built of timber? And what is memory built of, that it should outlast them? Mr. Rand's house--there it is, with its high porch! But where are the cherry trees? Where is the round flower bed? And what on earth have they been doing to the neighborhood? Why have they moved all the houses closer to the street and spoiled the old front yards? Then the heartshaking realization that they _hadn't_ moved the houses; that the yards were the same; that they had always been small and cramped; that the only change was in the eye of him who had come back. No; not the only change, but the great one. Almost all the linden trees that formed a line beside my grandfather's house are gone. The four which remain aren't large trees, after all. The vacant lot next door is blotted out by a row of cheap apartment houses. But there is the Borden house standing stanch, solid, austere as ever, behind its iron fence. How afraid we used to be of Mr. Borden! Can he be living still? And has he mellowed in old age?--for the spite fence is torn down! Next door, there, is the house in which I went to my first party--in a velveteen suit and wide lace collar. There was a lady at that party; she wore a velvet dress and was the most beautiful lady that I ever saw. She is several times a grandmother now--still beautiful. The gentleman who owns the house in which I used to live had heard I was in town, and was so kind as to think that it would interest me to see the place again. I never was more grateful to a man!