A well-known _form_ was missing, that used to meet me in this place--it was thine--Ben Moxam--the kindest, gentlest, politest of human beings, yet was he nothing higher than a gardener in the family.

Honest creature! thou didst never pass me in my childish rambles, without a soft speech, and a smile.

I remember thy good-natured face.

But there is one thing, for which I can never forgive thee, Ben Moxam--that thou didst join with an old maiden aunt of mine in a cruel plot, to lop away the hanging branches of the old fir-trees--I remember them sweeping to the ground.
I have often left my childish sports to ramble in this place--its glooms and its solitude had a mysterious charm for my young mind, nurturing within me that love of quietness and lonely thinking, which has accompanied me to maturer years.
In this _Wilderness_ I found myself, after a ten years' absence.

Its stately fir-trees were yet standing, with all their luxuriant company of underwood--the squirrel was there, and the melancholy cooings of the wood-pigeon--all was as I had left it--my heart softened at the sight--it seemed as though my character had been suffering a _change_ since I forsook these shades.
My parents were both dead--I had no counsellor left, no experience of age to direct me, no sweet voice of reproof.