Page:My Dear Cornelia (1924).pdf/110

 dusk of her eyes with a sweet young gravity full upon mine, she added: "How old was my mother when you first knew her?"

"About your age, Dorothy. Why do you ask?"

"Was she very different then—from the way she is now?"

"She was quite a bit like you, then," I said, "if I remember. But why do you ask?"

"Because," she said, "she has marked the loveliest passage in this book. And I can't understand why, because she isn't like that now—not at all like that now."

"Isn't like what?"

"I mean," said Dorothy with perfect lucidity, "that this passage expresses just the way this boy and I feel. Shall I read it to you?"

"That wouldn't be quite nice," I suggested, "would it, Dorothy? Good-bye!"

"Perhaps not," she agreed; but as she moved toward the house, she turned and called after me: "But if you want to read it, you can find it on page one-hundred-and-forty."

In my own copy of James Stephens's Deirdre, I have marked, on page one-hundred-and-forty, this passage:—

"Lacking him, what could be returned to