The old Miller place had adjoined his uncle 's farm . Lisbeth and he had played together from babyhood . How he had worshipped her ! When they were six years old they had solemnly promised to marry each other when they grew up , and Lisbeth had let him kiss her as earnest of their compact , made under a bloom-white apple tree in the Miller orchard . Yet she would always blush furiously and deny it ever afterwards ; it made her angry to be reminded of it . He saw himself going to school , carrying her books for her , the envied of all the boys . He remembered how he had fought Tony Josephs because Tony had the presumption to bring her spice apples : he had thrashed him too , so soundly that from that time forth none of the schoolboys presumed to rival him in Lisbeth 's affections -- roguish little Lisbeth ! who grew prettier and saucier every year . He recalled the keen competition of the old days when to be `` head of the class '' seemed the highest honour within mortal reach , and was striven after with might and main . He had seldom attained to it because he would never `` go up past '' Lisbeth . If she missed a word , he , Robert , missed it too , no matter how well he knew it . It was sweet to be thought a dunce for her dear sake . It was all the reward he asked to see her holding her place at the head of the class , her cheeks flushed pink and her eyes starry with her pride of position . And how sweetly she would lecture him on the way home from school about learning his spellings better , and wind up her sermon with the frank avowal , uttered with deliciously downcast lids , that she liked him better than any of the other boys after all , even if he could n't spell as well as they could . Nothing of success that he had won since had ever thrilled him as that admission of little Lisbeth 's ! She had been such a sympathetic little sweetheart too , never weary of listening to his dreams and ambitions , his plans for the future . She had always assured him that she knew he would succeed . Well , he had succeeded -- and now one of the uses he was going to make of his success was to turn Lisbeth and her children out of their home by way of squaring matters with a dead man ! Lisbeth had been away from home on a long visit to an aunt when he had left Chiswick . She was growing up and the childish intimacy was fading .
Perhaps , under other circumstances , it might have ripened into fruit , but he had gone away and forgotten her ; the world had claimed him ; he had lost all active remembrance XXXXX Lisbeth and , before this late return to Chiswick , he had not even known if she were living .
If at because for from of on that with within