I laughed outright at this challenge, and she blushed a little, and for the first time seemed for a moment a little shy.
'Well, you are a half an inch longer than me, I think—don't you?'
I was fully an inch taller, so I had no difficulty in making the proposed admission.
'Well, you do look handsome! doesn't she, Quinzy, lass? but your frock comes down almost to your heels—it does.'
And she glanced from mine to hers, and made a little kick up with the heel of the navvy boot to assist her in measuring the comparative distance.
'Maybe mine's a thought too short?' she suggested. 'Who's there? Oh! it's you, is it?' she cried as Mother Hubbard appeared at the door. 'Come in, L'Amour—don't you know, lass, you're always welcome?'
She had come to let us know that Uncle Silas would be happy to see me whenever I was ready; and that my cousin Millicent would conduct me to the room where he awaited me.
In an instant all the comic sensations awakened by my singular cousin's eccentricities vanished, and I was thrilled with awe. I was about to see in the flesh—faded, broken, aged, but still identical—that being who had been the vision and the problem of so many years of my short life.