“How old was I when I came down to see you for the first time--fourteen, I think? How well I remember everything. It was there, look, through that glade, that I saw your sisters coming to meet me, they were then only ten or eleven years old. I can see them in my mind's eye, quite distinctly, walking towards me, Grace leading the way, and now she is a mother; and they were all so dark. I remember thinking I had never seen girls so dark, they were like foreigners. And do you remember how your father scolded Sally for carrying me round the garden on her back, and she used to wake me up in the mornings by rolling croquet balls along the floor into my room. Oh, what good, dear days those were, and to think they are dead and gone, and that the house is going to be pulled down; and the garden--oh! the moonlights in that garden, where I walked with the girls, with scarves round their shoulders, through the dreamy light and shade. We have sung songs, and talked of all manner of things. You don't feel as I feel.” “Yes I do, my dear fellow, I think I feel a great deal more, only I don't talk so much about it.” “I know it is infinitely sad. This dear old wall! There is Maggie's window: how often have I looked up to that window for her winsome face, and I shall never look again.” “You are as bad as my father. Cheer up; I suppose it will be all the same a hundred years hence.” “No, no, it won't be the same. Why should all I feel and love be forgotten. I suppose it will be all the same. There goes Berkins. I hate that man.” “So do I.” “If time takes away pleasant things it takes unpleasant things too, and those who live a hundred years hence will not be troubled with that fool. True, there will be other Berkinses, and there will be other gardens, and other girls, but that doesn't make it the least less sad to see this garden pass into bricks and mortar.” Two footmen approached Mr. Berkins, and with all solemnity helped him to take off his overcoat. He said a few words to Willy, and was soon loudly ordering the workmen who were taking the Goodalls and the Friths from the walls. “Take care, there! Hi, you! get on the ladder and take hold of this end of the picture. There, that's better! That's the way to do it!” “That's what he said when he shot my bird,” Willy whispered; and they tried to laugh as they went upstairs. But their footsteps sounded hollow, and the wardrobes, where they had so often put their clothes, stood wide open, desolately empty. They looked out of the windows, and heard the voices of the work-people.