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By Root 1819 0

would suffice wholly to blind my eyes, or baffle my memory. Dr. John Graham Bretton retained still an affinity to the youth of sixteen: he had his eyes; he had some of his features; to wit, all the excellently-moulded lower half of the face; I found him out soon. I first recognized him on that occasion, noted several chapters back, when my unguardedly-fixed attention had drawn on me the mortification of an implied rebuke. Subsequent observation confirmed, in every point, that early surmise. I traced in the gesture, the port, and the habits of his manhood, all his boy’s promise. I heard in his now deep tones the accent of former days. Certain turns of phrase, peculiar to him of old, were peculiar to him still; and so was many a trick of eye and lip, many a smile, many a sudden ray levelled from the irid, under his well-charactered brow.

To say anything on the subject, to hint at my discovery, had not suited my habits of thought, or assimilated with my system of feeling. On the contrary, I had preferred to keep the matter to myself. I liked entering his presence covered with a cloud he had not seen through, while he stood before me under a ray of special illumination, which shone all partial over his head, trembled about his feet, and cast light no farther.

Well I knew that to him it could make little difference, were I to come forward and announce ‘This is Lucy Snowe!’ So I kept back in my teacher’s place; and as he never asked my name, so I never gave it. He heard me called ‘Miss,’ and ‘Miss Lucy;’ he never heard the surname, ‘Snowe.’ As to spontaneous recognition—though I, perhaps, was still less changed than he—the idea never approached his mind, and why should I suggest it?

During tea, Dr. John was kind, as it was his nature to be; that meal over, and the tray carried out, he made a cosy arrangement of the cushions in a corner of the sofa, and obliged me to settle amongst them. He and his mother also drew to the fire, and ere we had sat ten minutes, I caught the eye of the latter fastened steadily upon me. Women are certainly quicker in some things than men.

‘Well,’ she exclaimed, presently; ‘I have seldom seen a stronger likeness! Graham, have you observed it?’

‘Observed what? What ails the Old Lady now? How you stare, mama! One would think you had an attack of second-sight.’

‘Tell me, Graham, of whom does that young lady remind you?’ pointing to me.

‘Mama, you put her out of countenance. I often tell you abruptness is your fault; remember, too, that to you she is a stranger, and does not know your ways.’

‘Now, when she looks down; now, when she turns sideways, who is she like, Graham?’

‘Indeed, mama, since you propound the riddle, I think you ought to solve it!’

‘And you have known her some time, you say—ever since you first began to attend the school in the Rue Fossette;—yet you never mentioned 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 recognize 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 demonstration 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.

‘Mama calls me a stupid boy, and I think I am so;’ at length he said, ‘for, upon my honour, often as