Excerpt from The Beautiful Years: A Tale of Childhood<br><br>Then something that had been a vague shadow for a long, long time on the hearthrug, rose up, yawned, and shook itself. With a pad-pad of feet it came to John Maddison, and stared at him in the dimness. His master stroked the soft ears of the spaniel, whose eyes became more worshipping than ever. When John Maddison ceased his mechanical action, the cold moist nose of the dog Fidelis was rubbed against his hand solely as indicating grateful thanks, and not as would be done by a creature without pedigree in an endeavour to canvass for more pleasure. Then his tail thumped on the floor, for his beloved master, so silent and fearful, had whispered that he was dear old boy.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.