There had
grown up between us that summer a bond of sympathy that did not
exist between us and the others. We were older than they--the
Story Girl was fifteen and I was nearly that; and all at once it
seemed as if we were immeasurably older than the rest, and
possessed of dreams and visions and forward-reaching hopes which
they could not possibly share or understand. At times we were
still children, still interested in childish things. But there
came hours when we seemed to our two selves very grown up and old,
and in those hours we talked our dreams and visions and hopes,
vague and splendid, as all such are, over together, and so began
to build up, out of the rainbow fragments of our childhood's
companionship, that rare and beautiful friendship which was to
last all our lives, enriching and enstarring them. For there is
no bond more lasting than that formed by the mutual confidences of
that magic time when youth is slipping from the sheath of
childhood and beginning to wonder what lies for it beyond those
misty hills that bound the golden road.
"Where are you going?" asked the Story Girl.
"To 'the woods that belt the gray hillside'--ay, and overflow
beyond it into many a valley purple-folded in immemorial peace,"
answered Uncle Blair.
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