I entered the village a boy again, with all the wild ambition of a boy and with a boy’s roguish spirit.  I resolved to play upon them at the parsonage.  If Ellen were not at the gate waiting for me, I would enter as a stranger and remain a season before throwing off disguise.  I would cunningly lead the conversation from topic to topic until we came naturally to the past, and there in the past my shadow would appear, and then at the right moment I would throw myself at Ellen’s feet and bury my head in her lap and weep for very joy.

These dreams beguiled me as I drew near the village.  My step was buoyant; I scarcely felt the weight of my portmanteau; I was drunk with expectation and delight.  In the village I found the streets and houses and signs for the most part unchanged, but I looked in vain for a familiar face.  A few lads were playing about “the corners,” and when I saw them it suddenly occurred to me that all those youngsters under fifteen were not born when I was a school-boy in Heartsease.  I turned away from them with a feeling of unutterable disappointment.  Why should not all my playmates be married or dead or have moved out of the village if changes had come to it?  I had not thought much of change in this connection, and it was a hard blow.

A faint flush was in the evening sky:  it was the afterglow, and in its light I pressed onward toward the parsonage.  A hollow in the road, through which a stream rippled, lay between me and the grove that sheltered Ellen’s home:  I hastened down it, and began climbing the easy ascent on the other side of the stream.  I seemed to grow years older with every step I took, for I knew that the change which comes to all must have come to me in like measure, though I was a boy again when I came up the road laughing and heard the first sweet village voice.

There was no form at the gate awaiting me, but the house was quite unaltered, and I knew every leaf in the garden.  The flush in the sky had turned to gold and the air throbbed with light as I hid my portmanteau under the rosebush by the gate and stole up to the study-door.  I would not give so palpable a clew to my identity as that:  I wished to appear like one who had dropped in for a moment to ask the hour or the loan of a late journal.  I rapped at the shutters that enclosed the outer door, and waited in a tremor of expectation:  there was no response.  Again I rapped, and again waited in vain for a reply.

The shadows deepened in the grove; a thin light sifted down through the leaves and fell upon the doorstep in pale disks that seemed to tremble with agitation and suspense.  I grew uneasy, and feared it was not wise of me to have come without announcement, and my heart beat heavily.  I walked nervously to the side of the house and glanced in at the deep bow-window; a shadow crossed the room:  it was Ellen’s shadow, and unchanged, thank God!  I knew she would not change, for she was one whom time wearied not and fear fretted not, but to whom all things were alike welcome, inasmuch as they came from the Hand that can work no ill.