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308 "Rather a peculiar child; was she not? I wonder how I treated her. Was I fond of children in those days? Was there anything gracious or kindly about me—great, reckless, school-boy as I was? But you don't recollect me, of course?"

"You have seen your own picture at La Terrasse. It is like you personally. In manner, you were almost the same yesterday as to-day."

"But, Lucy, how is that? Such an oracle really whets my curiosity. What am I to-day? What was I the yesterday of ten years back?"

"Gracious to whatever pleased you—unkindly or cruel to nothing."

"There you are wrong; I think I was almost a brute to you, for instance."

"A brute! No, Graham: I should never have patiently endured brutality."

"This, however, I do remember: quiet Lucy Snowe tasted nothing of my grace."

"As little of your cruelty."

"Why, had I been Nero himself, I could not have tormented a being inoffensive as a shadow."

"I smiled; but I also hushed a groan. Oh!—I wished he would just let me alone—cease allusion to me. These epithets—these attributes I put from