Turning quick upon me, a large eye, under long lashes, flashed over me, the intruder: the lashes were as dark as long, and they softened with their pencilling the orb they guarded.

“Ah! you are come!” she breathed out, in a soft, quiet voice, and she smiled slowly, and gazed intently.

I knew her now. Having only once seen that sort of face, with that cast of fine and delicate featuring, I could not but know her.

“Miss de Bassompierre,” I pronounced.

“No,” was the reply, “not Miss de Bassompierre for you !” I did not inquire who then she might be, but waited voluntary information.

“You are changed, but still you are yourself,” she said, approaching nearer. “I remember you well⁠—your countenance, the colour of your hair, the outline of your face⁠ ⁠…”

I had moved to the fire, and she stood opposite, and gazed into me; and as she gazed, her face became gradually more and more expressive of thought and feeling, till at last a dimness quenched her clear vision.

“It makes me almost cry to look so far back,” said she; “but as to being sorry, or sentimental, don’t think it; on the contrary, I am quite pleased and glad.”

Interested, yet altogether at fault, I knew not what to say. At last I stammered, “I think I never met you till that night, some weeks ago, when you were hurt⁠ ⁠… ?”

She smiled. “You have forgotten then that I have sat on your knee, been lifted in your arms, even shared your pillow? You no longer remember the night when I came crying, like a naughty little child as I was, to your bedside, and you took me in. You have no memory for the comfort and protection by which you soothed an acute distress? Go back to Bretton. Remember Mr. Home.”

At last I saw it all. “And you are little Polly?”