The vision fled; I turned my head on my pillow and wept.
You may say such thoughts and visions were strangely precocious in a child of twelve years old.

I suppose they were; but I never remember being a child.

My sad, gentle mother, the sober, earnest, practical Peggy, were the companions of my infancy, instead of children of my own age.

The sunlight of my young life was not reflected from the golden locks of childhood, its radiant smile and unclouded eye.

I was defrauded of the sweetest boon of that early season, a confidence that this world is the happiest, fairest, best of worlds, the residence of joy, beauty, and goodness.
A thoughtful child! I do not like to hear it.