I was never one to begrudge people their memories. From a child I would listen when they spoke of the past. Mother often remarked upon it as strange in one so young. But I think I must have guessed even then at what is now clear to me though I have not skill enough with words to make it plain. For I know that nothing can be so sweet as remembered joyand nothing so bitter as despair that no longer has the power to hurt us. And to me the past seems like nothing so much as one of those shells that used to be on every mantelpiece of seafaring families years ago along the coast of Maine.