le pain which thrilled my
heart, on thus being made to feel that while Graham could devote to
others the most grave and earnest, the manliest interest, he had no
more than light raillery for Lucy, the friend of lang syne, I inquired
calmly,--"On what points are we so closely in accordance?"

"We each have an observant faculty. You, perhaps, don't give me credit
for the possession; yet I have it."

"But you were speaking of tastes: we may see the same objects, yet
estimate them differently?"

"Let us bring it to the test. Of course, you cannot but render homage
to the merits of Miss Fanshawe: now, what do you think of others in the
room?--my mother, for instance; or the lions yonder, Messieurs A----
and Z----; or, let us say, that pale little lady, Miss de Bassompierre?"

"You know what I think of your mother. I have not thought of Messieurs
A---- and Z----."

"And the other?"

"I think she is, as you say, a pale little lady--pale, certainly, just
now, when she is fatigued with over-excitement."

"You don't remember her as a child?"

"I wonder, sometimes, whether you do."

"I had forgotten her; but it is noticeable, that circumstances,
persons, even words and looks, that had slipped your memory, may, under
certain conditions, certain aspects of your own or another's mind,
revive."

"That is possible enough."

"Yet," he continued, "the revival is imperfect--needs confirmation,
partakes so much of the dim character of a dream, or of the airy one of
a fancy, that the testimony of a witness becomes necessary for
corroboration. Were you not a guest at Bretton ten years ago, when Mr.
Home brought his little girl, whom we then called 'little Polly,' to
stay with mamma?"

"I was there the night she came, and also the morning she went away."

"Rather a peculiar child, was she not? I wonder how I treated her. Was
I fond of children in those days? Was there anything gracious or kindly
about me--great, reckless, schoolboy as I was? But you don't recollect
me, of course?"

"You have seen your own picture at La Terrasse. It is like you
personally. In manner, you were almost the same yesterday as to-day."

"But, Lucy, how is that? Such an oracle really whets my curiosity. What
am I to-day? What was I the yesterday of ten years back?"

"Gracious to whatever pleased you--unkindly or cruel to nothing."

"There you are wrong; I think I was almost a brute to _you_, for
instance."

"A brute! No, Graham: I should never