"Cliffe! Are you little Tommy Cliffe, and do you come from Stowbury?"
And all Elizabeth's heart was in her eyes.
As has been said, she was of a specially tenacious nature. She liked few people, but those she did like she held very fast. Almost the only strong interest of her life, except Miss Hilary, had been the little boy whom she had snatched from under the horse's heels; and though he was rather a scape-grace, and cared little for her, and his mother was a decidedly objectionable woman, she had clung to them both firmly till she lost sight of them.
Now it was not to be expected that she should recognize in this London stranger the little lad whose life she had saved—a lad, too, from her beloved Stowbury—without a certain amount of emotion, at which the individual in question broadly stared.
"Bless your heart, I am Tommy Cliffe from Stowbury, sure enough. Who are you?"
"Elizabeth Hand."
Whereupon ensued a most friendly greeting. Tom declared he should have known her any where, and had never forgotten her—never! How far that was true or not, he certainly looked as if it were; and two great tears of pleasure dimmed Elizabeth's kind eyes.
"You've grown a man now, Tommy," said she, looking at him with a sort of half-maternal pride, and noticing his remarkably hand some and intelligent face, so intelligent that it would have attracted notice, though it was set upon broad, stooping shoulders, and a small, slight body. "Let me see; how old are you?"
"I'm nineteen, I think."
"And I'm two-and-twenty. How aged we are growing!" said Elizabeth, with a smile.