“To see this one from the north country--to hear his voice--that was life and all for me--life and all. “But he was gone. “He left a silence and a weariness. “These came and crowded out the white from my heart, and themselves found lodgment there. “And all was heavy gray. “The picture of life and the mystery and shadow that was revealed to me when the world was white has never gone. It has filled me in the days of my youth with an old terror. “Of all things in Japan, what a thing it is to fall in love! “To fall in love!”--said my friend Annabel Lee, the while her two eyes and her two white hands, in their expression, their position, told of a thing that is heart-breaking to see. XIII WHEN I WENT TO THE BUTTE HIGH SCHOOL “There was a time,” I said to my friend Annabel Lee, “when I went to the Butte High School. I think of it now with mingled feelings.” “You were younger then,” said my friend Annabel Lee. “I was younger, and in those days I still looked upon life as something which would one day open wide and display wondrous and beautiful things for me. And meanwhile I went every day to the Butte High School. I found it a very interesting place--much more interesting than I have since found the broad world. I was sixteen and seventeen and eighteen, and things were not brilliantly colored, and so I made much with a vivid fancy of all that came in my path.” “And what do you, now that you are one-and-twenty?” said my friend Annabel Lee. “I sit quietly,” I replied, “and wish not, and wait not--and look back upon the days in the Butte High School with mingled feelings.” “Also unawares,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “you still think things relating to that which is one day to open wondrously for you. But, never mind,” she added hastily, as I was about to say something, “tell me about the Butte High School.” “’Twas a place,” said I, “where were gathered together manifold interesting phenomena, and where I studied Vergil, and grew fond of it, and was good in it; and where I studied geometry, and was fond of it, and knew less about it each day that I studied it;--and always I studied closely the persons whom I met daily in the Butte High School. I recall very clearly each member of the class of ninety-nine. My memory conjures up for me some quaint and fantastic visions against picturesque backgrounds that appeal to my sense of delicate incongruity, especially so since viewed in this light and from this distance.” “What are some of them?” said my friend Annabel Lee.