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“‘Now,’ thought Miss Amanda, ‘if this is the old sun-dial, and if this is the mound in front of our house, although it is so much smaller than I remember it, the dear old house must be just behind it.’ But when she became conscious in that direction, the dear old house was not there. There was a house, but it looked new and handsome. It had marble steps, with railings and a portico, but it was another house altogether, and everything seemed to be something else except the sun-dial, and even that did not rest on the old brick pillar with projections at the bottom, on which she used to stand, when she was a little girl, in order to see what time it was.

“Now Miss Amanda felt lonely, and a little frightened. She had never been accustomed to finding herself in places entirely strange to her. She felt, too, that she was there in that place, and could not be anywhere else even if she wanted to, and this produced in her a condition which, half a century before, would have been nervousness. But suddenly she perceived something which, although strange, was very pleasant. It was a young girl upon a bicycle coming swiftly toward her over a wide, smooth driveway. Miss Amanda had never been conscious of a bicycle; and as the girl swept rapidly on, it seemed as if she were skimming over the earth without support. At the foot of the marble steps the girl stopped and seemed to fall to the ground; but she had not fallen: she had only stepped lightly from the machine, which she leaned against a post, and then walked rapidly toward the place where the sweet peas grew.

“Miss Amanda greatly admired this girl. She was dressed in an extremely pretty fashion, with a straw hat and short skirts, something like the peasants in southern Europe. She began to pick the sweet-pea blossoms, and soon had a large bunch of them. Now steps were heard coming round the house, and the girl, turning her head, called out: ‘Oh, grandpa, wait a minute. I am picking these flowers for you.’ From around one end of the house, which was a large one, Miss Amanda saw approaching an elderly gentleman who was small, with short gray hair and a round, ruddy face. He walked briskly, and with a light switch, which he carried in his hand, he made strokes at the heads of a few fluffy dandelions which appeared here and there; but he never hit any of them.

“Instantly Miss Amanda knew him: it was her nephew John–the same boy who had broken the sun-dial! No matter what his age might happen to be, he had the same bright eyes, and the same habit of striking at things without hitting them. Yes, it was John. There could be no possible mistake about it. It was that harum-scarum young scapegrace John. If Miss Amanda had had a heart, it would have gone out to that dear old boy; if she had had eyes they would have been filled with tears of affection as she gazed on him. Of all her family he had been most dear to her, although, as he had often told her, there was no one in the world who found so much fault with him.

“The old gentleman sat down on a rustic seat beneath a walnut-tree, and his granddaughter came running to him, filling the air with the odor of sweet peas. She seated herself at the other end of the bench, and let the flowers drop into her lap. ‘Grandpa,’ said she, ‘these are for you, but I am only going to give you one of them now for your buttonhole. The rest I will put in a vase in your study. But I wanted you to stop here anyway, for I have something to tell you.’

“‘Tell on,’ said he, when the girl had put a spray bearing three blossoms into his buttonhole. ‘Is it anything you want me to do this afternoon?’