ned to
me that singular resemblance!"

"I could not mention a thing of which I never thought, and which I do
not now acknowledge. What _can_ you mean?"

"Stupid boy! look at her."

Graham did look: but this was not to be endured; I saw how it must end,
so I thought it best to anticipate.

"Dr. John," I said, "has had so much to do and think of, since he and I
shook hands at our last parting in St. Ann's Street, that, while I
readily found out Mr. Graham Bretton, some months ago, it never
occurred to me as possible that he should recognise Lucy Snowe."

"Lucy Snowe! I thought so! I knew it!" cried Mrs. Bretton. And she at
once stepped across the hearth and kissed me. Some ladies would,
perhaps, have made a great bustle upon such a discovery without being
particularly glad of it; but it was not my godmother's habit to make a
bustle, and she preferred all sentimental demonstrations in bas-relief.
So she and I got over the surprise with few words and a single salute;
yet I daresay she was pleased, and I know I was. While we renewed old
acquaintance, Graham, sitting opposite, silently disposed of his
paroxysm of astonishment.

"Mamma calls me a stupid boy, and I think I am so," at length he said;
"for, upon my honour, often as I have seen you, I never once suspected
this fact: and yet I perceive it all now. Lucy Snowe! To be sure! I
recollect her perfectly, and there she sits; not a doubt of it. But,"
he added, "you surely have not known me as an old acquaintance all this
time, and never mentioned it."

"That I have," was my answer.

Dr. John commented not. I supposed he regarded my silence as eccentric,
but he was indulgent in refraining from censure. I daresay, too, he
would have deemed it impertinent to have interrogated me very closely,
to have asked me the why and wherefore of my reserve; and, though he
might feel a little curious, the importance of the case was by no means
such as to tempt curiosity to infringe on discretion.

For my part, I just ventured to inquire whether he remembered the
circumstance of my once looking at him very fixedly; for the slight
annoyance he had betrayed on that occasion still lingered sore on my
mind.

"I think I do!" said he: "I think I was even cross with you."

"You considered me a little bold; perhaps?" I inquired.

"Not at all. Only, shy and retiring as your general manner was, I
wondered what personal or facial enormity in me proved so magnetic to
your usually averte