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228 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.

"Not excessively fond," said she; "I liked her: I respected her, as I should do now: she seems to me very little altered."

"She is not much changed," I assented. We were silent a few minutes. Glancing round the room, she said—

"There are several things here that used to be at Bretton. I remember that pincushion and that looking-glass."

Evidently she was not deceived in her estimate of her own memory; not, at least, so far.

"You think, then, you would have known Mrs. Bretton?" I went on.

"I perfectly remembered her; the turn of her features, her olive complexion, and black hair, her height, her walk, her voice."