He ceased then all efforts to arrange a meeting to which he had looked forward with pride in his office of exhibiting each personage to the other.

But he was grieved toward his grandfather, becoming sharp and even disdainful to the queer, silent old man, at those times when the father was in the village.

He could have no love and but little friendliness for one who slighted his dear father.

And so a breach widened between them from year to year, as the child grew stouter fibre into his sentiments of loyalty and justice.
Meantime, age crept upon the little boy, relentlessly depriving him of this or that beloved idol, yet not unkindly leaving with him the pliant vitality that could fashion others to be still more warmly cherished.
With Nancy, on afternoons when cool shadows lay across the lawn between their houses, he often discussed these matters of life.

Nancy herself had not been spared the common fate.