Page:O'Higgins--From the life.djvu/179

 Some recollection of the incident returned to him dimly while he studied her. She was bare-headed, and the morning sun shone full in her face. It seemed to him that he had known her—somewhere. "Of course," he said. "I didn't recognize you."

"You don't recognize me yet," she replied.

No. He couldn't really say that he did.

She explained, "I don't think you ever knew my name."

"No." He could not place her.

"Do you remember," she helped him, "once when you were whipped, hi school, for guessing the figures on the blackboard?"

He blinked at her. She waited confidently. "Was that you?" he asked. "At the back of the room?"

She nodded, enjoying it, as soberly mischievous as a child with some little mystification of its own. "And I spoke to you, afterward, on your way home."

"I remember." His own expression had become boyish and frank and friendly. "Did you tell me what the figures were—the first time?" "Yes. And then I got frightened and couldn't tell you what the second ones were. That's what I tried to explain to you—afterward."

"I remember," he said. "I didn't understand. I thought I'd just guessed them." And then, after a long smiling pause of thoughtful silence, he