I could sleep but little for thinking of these things, and when morning broke, and the sun shone out, I went I forth impatient to see the real objects which had been so long pictured in my memory.

“Am I in Brookdale?  No—­it cannot be.  There is some strange error.  Yes—­yes—­it is Brookdale, for here is the old church.  I cannot mistake that.  Hark!  Yes—­yes—­it is the early bell!  I would know its sound amid a thousand!”

On I moved, passing the ancient building whose architect had long since been called to sleep with his fathers, and over whose walls and spire time had cast a duller hue.  I was eager to reach the old homestead.  The mill lay between—­or, once it did.  Only a shapeless ruin now remained.  The broken wheel, the crumbling walls, and empty forebay were all that my eyes rested upon, and I paused sadly to mark the wreck which time had made.  The race was dry, and overgrown with elder and rank weeds.  A quarter of a mile distant stood out sharply, against the clear sky, a large factory, newly built and thither the stream in which I had once sailed my tiny boat, or dropped my line, had been turned, and the old mill left to silence and decay.  Ah me!  I cannot make words obedient to my thoughts in giving utterance to the disappointment I then felt.  A brief space I stood, mourning over the ruins, and then moved on again, a painful presentiment fast arising in my heart that all would not be, as I had left, it in the white cottage I was seeking.  The two great elms that stood bending together, as if instinct with a sense of protection, above that dear home—­where were they?  My eyes searched for them in vain.

“Where is the spring?  Surely it welled up here, and this is the way the clear stream flowed!”

Alas! the spring was dried, and scarcely a trace of its former existence remained.  The broad flat stone was broken.  The shady alcove beneath which the waters came up so cool and clear, had been removed.  All was naked and barren.  Near by stood an old deserted house.  The door was half open, the windows were broken out, the chimney had fallen, and great patches of the roof had been torn away.  Around, all was in keeping with this.  The little garden was covered with weeds, the fence that once enclosed it was broken down, the old apple-tree that I had loved almost as tenderly as if it had been a human creature, was no more to be seen, and in the place where the grape-vine grew was a deep pool of green and stagnant water.

My first impulse was to turn and flee from the place, under a painful revulsion of feeling.  But I could not leave the spot thus.  For some minutes I stood mournfully leaning on the broken garden gate, and then forced myself to enter beneath the roof where I was born, and where I grew up with loving and happy children, under the sunlight of a mother’s smile.  If there was ruin without, there was desolation added to ruin within, but neither ruin nor desolation could