Was I Right? by O.F. Walton

IT has often seemed very strange to me, that in moments of great anxiety or trouble, when our minds and our hearts are stretched to the uttermost, we notice with the keenest perception every little object around us. Each moving leaf, each nodding flower, catches our attention, and, years afterwards, we can remember, as distinctly as if it were yesterday, how everything looked in those sorrowful moments, when our minds were filled with thoughts of things and people far away.

There is one day in my life, which stands out from amongst the past as a day above all others to be remembered by me. And, as I look back to it, I see myself a girl of nineteen, sitting at my bedroom window, lost in thought and perplexity! I can see the garden just as it looked as I gazed out into it that afternoon-our quaint, old-fashioned garden, with its hedge of laurel bushes, and the large elm trees at the end of it, with the flickering light and shade underneath. I can see the rabbits from the plantations round, nibbling the grass on the lawn; and I can hear the trickling of the stream, which ran by the side of the house, in which Claude, and Maggie, and I used to float our boats, in the happy days when we were children. And now the old home must be left for ever, for Maggie and I had not a penny in the world!