[1] I am told by an able friend, who is good enough to revise for me this manuscript, that it is not likely that a mere boy, as I then was, would have made such an observation as the above. I do not doubt that this remark is altogether just; but I am afraid it will apply to so much else in this narrative, that it is scarcely worth while to make an alteration. I am not used to literary composition; I cannot weigh whether this or that is characteristic of a speaker. I am merely a garrulous person, who has, however, such a striking story to tell, that I trust the matter will atone for the manner. CHAPTER III. THE DREAM BY THE BROOK. Although my story must needs be sombre wherever it has to do with that person whose name it bears, yet I hope there will be found some sunny spots in it. During the first few months after my arrival at Fairburn, there was nothing to sadden life there that I knew of. I passed my days under green leaves, and not only in a metaphorical sense; for every fine afternoon, immediately after study was over, I betook myself to the Park. The whole place was watched as zealously, even in summer, as the gardens of the Hesperides, but Mr. Long had obtained permission for me to roam at large therein. To me, vexed from childhood by Indian suns, Fairburn Chase--as that part of the demesne most remote from the Hall was called--was far more delightful than it could have been to any mere English boy. Its stately avenues of oaks, tapering into infinite distance, with their checker work of beam and shade, was the realization of my dreams of forest beauty. Nor was its delicious coolness marred by the broad strips of sunlight, at long but equal distances, like the golden stairs of the Angels' Ladder; for those, I knew, marked the interlacing of "the Rides", themselves as fair, and leading, not as the avenue did, to the outer world, but into secret bowers known only to the deer and me.