He was allowed to go about a good deal by himself, and it did him good.

He grew up fearless and self-dependent, and never felt the want of amusement.

The garden and orchard supplied him a theatre for endless games and romps, sometimes with no other companion than his cousin and his dog, and sometimes with the few children of his own age whom he knew in the hamlet.

Very soon he forgot all about India; it only hung like a distant golden haze on the horizon of his memory.

When asked if he remembered it, he would say thoughtfully, that in dreams and at some other times, he saw a little child, with long curly hair, running about in a little garden, near a great river, in a place where the air was very bright.