Now the Bozards are gone from these parts, for my great-niece, the granddaughter and sole heiress of this son, has married and has issue of another name.

But this is by the way.
From our earliest days we children, Bozards and Wingfields, lived almost as brothers and sisters, for day by day we met and played together in the snow or in the flowers.

Thus it would be hard for me to say when I began to love Lily or when she began to love me; but I know that when first I went to school at Norwich I grieved more at losing sight of her than because I must part from my mother and the rest.

In all our games she was ever my partner, and I would search the country round for days to find such flowers as she chanced to love.

When I came back from school it was the same, though by degrees Lily grew shyer, and I also grew suddenly shy, perceiving that from a child she had become a woman.
Still we met often, and though neither said anything of it, it was sweet to us to meet.
Thus things went on till this day of my mother's death.