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.
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