There follows a transition into another state of conscious being wherein I appear to have wings, and to be soaring up to the roof of a great hall, and sailing from corner to corner, like a humming bee on a tour of exploration; and, the roof presently being removed, I launch out with wings outspread, joyous and free, until I lose myself in the unknowable, to emerge, sometime after, in my own cradle-nest at the foot of the wooden stairs. And thus, for an unknown stretch of time, I endure my days without apparent object, but quietly observant, and an inarticulate witness of a multitude of small events; and thus I waited, and watched, and dreamed, surrendering myself to my state, undisturbed, unaffected, unresisting, borne along by Time until I could stand and take a larger and more deliberate survey of the strange things done around me. In process of time, however, my tongue learns to form words, and to enter upon its duties, and it is not long before intelligence begins to peep out and to retain durably the sense of existence. One of the first things I remember is to have been gravely told that I had come from London in a band-box, and to have been assured that all babies came from the same place. It satisfied my curiosity for several years as to the cause of my coming; but, later, I was informed that my mother had hastened to her parents from London to be delivered of me; and that, after recovery, she had gone back to the Metropolis, leaving me in the charge of my grandfather, Moses Parry, who lived within the precincts of Denbigh Castle. Forty years of my life have passed, and this delving into my earliest years appears to me like an exhumation of Pompeii, buried for centuries under the scoriæ, lava, and volcanic dust of Vesuvius. To the man of the Nineteenth Century, who paces the recovered streets and byeways of Pompeii, how strange seem the relics of the far distant life! Just so appear to me the little fatherless babe, and the orphaned child. Up to a certain time I could remember well every incident connected with those days; but now I look at the child with wonder, and can scarcely credit that out of that child I grew. How quaint that bib and tucker, that short frock, the fat legs, the dimpled cheeks, the clear, bright, grey eyes, the gaping wonderment at the sight of a stranger; and I have to brush by the stupefied memories of a lifetime!