“You nearly hit my name,” he rejoined, “which shows the family insight. You have seen me before, but only once, and could not then have heard it!”
“Where was that?”
“In this very room. You were quite a child, however!”
I could not be sure that I remembered him, but for a moment I fancied I did, and I begged him to set me right as to his name.
“There is such a thing as remembering without recognising the memory in it,” he remarked. “For my name—which you have near enough—it used to be Raven.”
I had heard the name, for marvellous tales had brought it me.
“It is very kind of you to come and see me,” I said. “Will you not sit down?”
He seated himself at once.
“You knew my father, then, I presume?”
“I knew him,” he answered with a curious smile, “but he did not care about my acquaintance, and we never met.—That gentleman, however,” he added, pointing to the portrait,—“old Sir Up’ard, his people called him,—was in his day a friend of mine yet more intimate than ever your grandfather became.”