She looked as if she had. Her eyes were the eyes of one who can remember; one whose childhood does not fade like a dream, nor whose youth vanish like a sunbeam. She would not take life, loosely and incoherently, in parts, and let one season slip as she entered on another: she would retain and add; often review from the commencement, and so grow in harmony and consistency as she grew in years. Still I could not quite admit the conviction that all the pictures which now crowded upon me were vivid and visible to her. Her fond attachments, her sports and contests with a well-loved playmate, the patient, true devotion of her child’s heart, her fears, her delicate reserves, her little trials, the last piercing pain of separation.⁠ ⁠… I retraced these things, and shook my head incredulous. She persisted. “The child of seven years lives yet in the girl of seventeen,” said she.

“You used to be excessively fond of Mrs. Bretton,” I remarked, intending to test her. She set me right at once.