Before returning homeward I gazed once more over the Mendon hills and I wonder where and what that new looming world is. It is not many years before I know. My legs grow longer, the heart braver. I cross the bridge fearless and careless. Stone walls conceal neither friend nor foe. The forests contain only trees. I look down upon small boys; they are now my natural prey. I throw stones at them and make them cry, which gives me unspeakable delight. I am proud, restless, agitated by nameless longings. The walls of my world oppress me. Destiny has determined that I shall not be disenchanted before that world is entirely exhausted so that after many years I may recover its earliest charm. Nothing interests me more than a moment. I have become acquainted with Mistress Barber, the aristocratic Pennimans and Dr. Thurber, the poet--for Bellingham has a small poet, though I was like to forget it. He nods to me from his sulky. They say he writes his prescriptions in rhyme. He also composes epitaphs for his patients when his boluses fail to save them, and divides the glory with the local Fourth of July orators with a suitable poem. His _magnum opus_ is an elementary chemistry in verse for use in schools. He had a chubby, rubicund face and a head of iron grey curls which shook as he laughed. The Barbers and Pennimans are kind to me, but they no longer offer me an apple and a cake. Perhaps they like me and think they can make something of me. Or it may be on my mother's account, whose kind heart and sweet, winning face every body knows except herself, for she is as humble and modest as she is good. Admitted to their houses I discover new manners; their clothing is different and their rooms have unfamiliar furnishings that show no sign of usage. I sit very straight in a soft-seated chair as I have been instructed, but do not know what to do with my hands and can hardly keep them out of my pockets. My heels secretly feel for the rung of the chair; it has none, which seems curious, and it is a puzzle I take home with me. These superior neighbors of ours speak of books, of music and persons and places unknown to me. They have been as far as Mendon, beyond I imagine, for I hear the names Boston and Providence. It incites me to know all that they know, and I begin to make comparisons, to find that one house differs from another, that one person differs from another and to choose between them. All things draw or repel me. I have glimmerings of an ideal, of something less or more than is present and actual. A cent, that formerly made me rich, now makes me poor. I am not so eager for playmates; there are moments when they seem mere babies, and our sports dull and trivial. The sweet child whose frock falls only to her knees, whose wide white pantalets almost touch her red shoes, with whom I have romped for three summers alternately teasing and caressing, yet always with the lofty port of protection and superiority, no longer satisfies my heart or gratifies my pride.