He skipped over an interval of ten years, represented on the page by ten laboriously made stars, and did for his hero in the following lines: "And now, reader, let us come into Mondisfield churchyard.

There are three tombstones.

On one is written, 'Mr.Paul Wharncliffe.'" The story was no better than the productions of most eight-year-old children, the written story at least.

But, curiously enough, it proved to be the germ of the celebrated romance, 'At Strife,' which Derrick wrote in after years; and he himself maintains that his picture of life during the Civil War would have been much less graphic had he not lived so much in the past during his various visits to Mondisfield.
It was at his second visit, when we were nine, that I remember his announcing his intention of being an author when he was grown up.

My mother still delights in telling the story.