He was musing, not speaking to me; so I remained quiet.

“A dull, old house,” he said, “and a monotonous life, Stay with us, Trotwood, eh?” he added in his usual manner, and as if he were answering something I had just said.  “I’m glad of it.  You are company to us both.  It is wholesome to have you here.  Wholesome for me, wholesome for Agnes wholesome perhaps for all of us.”

“I’m sure it is for me, sir,” I said, “I’m so glad to be here.”

“That’s a fine fellow!” said Mr. Wickfield.  “As long as you are glad to be here, you shall stay here.”

And so I lived at Mr. Wickfield’s through the remainder of my schooldays, and to Agnes, as the months went by, I turned more and more often for advice and counsel.

We saw a good deal of Dr. Strong’s wife, both because she had taken a liking to me, and because she was very fond of Agnes, and was often backwards and forwards at our house, and we had pleasant evenings at the doctor’s too, with other guests, when we had merry round games of cards, or music—­for both Mrs. Strong and Agnes sang sweetly—­and so, with weekly visits from my aunt, and walks and talks with Agnes, and the events and phases of feeling too numerous to chronicle, which make up a boy’s existence, my schooldays glided all too swiftly by.

Time has stolen on unobserved.  I am higher in the school and no one breaks my peace.  Dr. Strong refers to me in public as a promising young scholar, and my aunt remits me a guinea by next post.  And what comes now?  I am the head boy!  I look down on the line of boys below me, with a condescending interest in such of them as bring to my mind the boy I was myself, when I first came there.  That little fellow seems to be no part of me; I remember him as something left behind upon the road of life—­and almost think of him as of some one else.

What other changes have come upon me, beside the changes in my growth and looks, and in the knowledge I have garnered all this while?  I wear a gold watch and chain, a ring upon my little finger, and a long-tailed coat; and twice have I been desperately in love with a fair damsel, and have twice recovered.

And the little girl I saw on that first day at Mr. Wickfield’s, where is she?  Gone also.  In her stead, the perfect likeness of the picture, a child’s likeness no more, moves about the house; and Agnes, my sweet sister, as I call her in my thoughts, my counsellor and friend, the better angel of the lives of all who come within her calm, good, self-denying influence—­is quite a woman.

When the time came to take leave of Agnes and her father, though it saddened me, my mind was so filled with thoughts of self that I paid little heed to Agnes and her brave farewell, nor did I realize what her loneliness would be when the old and silent house was made doubly silent by the removal of a boy’s presence.  I did not then understand what her devotion to the elderly father and his interests held of sacrifice for one so young, nor of what fine clay the girl was moulded.  But in later years I realized it fully, and looking back, I always saw her as when on that first day, in the grave light of the old staircase, I thought of the stained-glass window, associating something of its tranquil brightness with her ever afterwards.