However much we may desire to retain the unconscious spirit of youth, it vanishes with life’s first nipping frost, and although the leaves may not fall in a night, they have no sap or potency left in them. Thus it was with me from that melancholy day when my father went down broken and disheartened. The shell, however, had not yet fallen apart, but from the day that I left Wild Plum childhood vanished, and the weeks were like years in growth and knowledge of worldly things. So that now, at twelve, my youth was already a thing of the past, and not to be considered in any other light. It mattered not that others did not see the change. This pleased me rather than otherwise; but Moth made me less than I was—a mere creature not worthy of thought—and because of it I hated him, and my aunt not less. They threatened all I at present regarded, so fast had I grown in love of things apart; and to shake them off, and in all matters go contrary to their wishes, was now uppermost in the desire of my heart. In this I was again successful, and going forward in the bright sunshine, my heart lightened as I reached the summit of the bluff and looked down on the village I had left behind. Its scattered houses lay bathed in the afternoon’s sun, and beyond them the great river, smooth and glistening, stretched away on either side, broken only by the lofty trees that lined its eastern shore. To the south the little inlet, bordered about with willows, where Cousin Rolland and I were wont to go, I could plainly see; and in the heart of the village his house stood out among its neighbors, as if somehow greater than them all. Looking, I imagined I could see Cousin Angeline watching from her door, and beckoning me to return. Knowing it could not be, I yet was none the less alarmed, and turning, ran on, the quicker to hide myself in the forest that lay behind.