In looking back as far as my mind will carry roe into the past, there comes first a cloud—a pleasant, summer-like cloud, not altogether shapeless, yet very faint and soft in the outlines, and varying strangely as I look at it. Now it takes the form of a beautiful lady, with two or three lovely children playing around her. I am among them; but whether I am one of them or not I cannot tell. Then it changes to a tall, somewhat youthful-looking man, with a sword at his side, and a great broad belt over his right shoulder. Heavy buckskin gloves he must have worn; for I remember quite well the hard touch of them between my little fingers. I see his jack-boots, too, even now. They are the very plainest part of the cloud. But the masses roll over—and what is seen next? A French château, with as many little towers as a cruet-stand, some square, some round, some with conical roofs, some with long gables, and at the end there is a small building, which, in the nonsensical slang of London house-agents, would be called semi-detached. It has a little spire, like that of a church, and a bell in it. Probably it was the chapel of the château; and there is a fountain playing before the house in the morning sun, surrounded by gay beds of flowers, formed into strange shapes, as if cut out by those ingenious instruments with which cooks produce variety in the patterns of fancy pie-crust. But it is all a cloud, never fixed, and never very clearly defined. The first distinct and definite recollection that I have, is that of finding myself in the town I have mentioned, and in the house of one of the clergy of the place—an excellent good man, if one ever lived. But that is a general recollection, and the most clear as well as the earliest of my more particular recollections is that of having sat by the side of a large pond, or little lake, formed by the stream which flowed round the hill, and with a good stout rod of very plain construction, and a tremendously thick line and large hook, throwing in some kind of bait, I forget what, in the desperate hope of catching a gigantic pike, which was reported to frequent that water. My line lay in the tank for a long while without the slightest movement of the little cork float attached to it. I got somewhat weary, and began to think fishing poor sport. I laid my rod down upon the bank, gathered a heap of stones, and began throwing them as far as I could toward the centre of the piece of water. This was not pure idleness; for I had some indefinite notion, I believe, of driving the fish nearer to the shore. The day had hitherto been fine. A bright, soft, sleepy light, had lain upon the bosom of the water. But it was now about four o’clock, and the day began to change. First there came a shadow, then a breeze tossing up little waves, then thick, dashing drops of rain. I ran some twenty steps back under a little ledge of the rock, which afforded some shelter; for