Years had rolled away whilst I had been asleep--ripe fruit had fallen, green fruit had come on whilst I had been asleep--how circumstances had altered, and above all myself, whilst I had been asleep.

No, I had not been asleep in the old church! I was in a pew it is true, but not the pew of black leather, in which I sometimes fell asleep in days of yore, but in a strange pew; and then my companions, they were no longer those of days of yore.

I was no longer with my respectable father and mother, and my dear brother, but with the gypsy cral {277} and his wife, and the gigantic Tawno, the Antinous of the dusky people.

And what was I myself?
No longer an innocent child, but a moody man, bearing in my face, as I knew well, the marks of my strivings and strugglings, of what I had learned and unlearned; nevertheless, the general aspect of things brought to my mind what I had felt and seen of yore.

There was difference enough it is true, but still there was a similarity--at least I thought so,--the church, the clergyman, and the clerk differing in many respects from those of pretty D.