“Yet,” he continued, “the revival is imperfect—needs confirmation, partakes so much of the dim character of a dream, or of the airy one of a fancy, that the testimony of a witness becomes necessary for corroboration. Were you not a guest at Bretton ten years ago, when Mr. Home brought his little girl, whom we then called ‘little Polly,’ to stay with mamma?”
“I was there the night she came, and also the morning she went away.”
“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, schoolboy 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.”