The stone columns used to be covered with moss, but now they are draped with climbing plants. The trees have been trimmed of the too-exuberant branches that used to seem to bend in blessing above the roof, or to tap upon the window panes. One never realises the vigour of a tree; grant it a few square yards and it soon overshadows them, and gradually draws nearer and nearer, like a friend who has the right of entrance. Now that our trees have been trimmed--for the time being--the sunlight caresses the walls of the old house, and this is better, in the matter of hygiene. Humidity is unwholesome, especially in autumn. But here is a puzzle; in my time, I mean in the time when I was young, there was a sun-dial carved in high relief upon the wall. Above it was a tarnished and half-effaced inscription, the secret of which I refused to penetrate: ME LUX, VOS UMBBA. Father had translated it for me and I made haste to forget it that I might still feel the thrill of the mysterious syllables. Above it was the iron finger whose slender shadow marked the hour all day long, and encircling it were the names of unknown cities, London, Boston, Pekin, and the rest, intended to show the differences in time the whole world round, as if the whole world were merely a dependance of the house, which dictated the laws of time to them all. But a linden tree, in an inadvertent moment, had rendered useless all this labour of light. The linden had indeed been pruned, but by an unlucky mischance, when the front of the house was restored the entire dial had been covered with a coat of whitewash. Oh, ill-starred restoration! But am not I responsible, for was it not I who ordered it? Grown people are capable of just such profanities. They do it without meaning any harm. No doubt I had said, carelessly, “That poor dial is of no use.” (The trees had not been trimmed then.) It is a mistake to let fall a thought; some one is sure to pick it up. A mason who had chanced to hear me actually thought to give me pleasure with his whitewash brush, and when I tried to restrain his zeal it was too late. As a matter of fact, all these changes which I force myself to set down hardly affect me. Don’t think me stoical to that degree. I simply do not see the house as it is. It might be besmeared from cornice to foundation and I should not notice it. I always see it as it was in my time--the time, of course you understand, when I was little. I have it thus before my eyes for all the rest of my life.