"Of course it is. Why, didn't you expect me?"
"I think I expected something smaller and rather less grown-up."
"I'm not grown-up. I'm the same as ever."
"Well, you're not little Anne any more."
She squeezed his arm, hanging on it in her old loving way. "No. But I'm still me. And I'd have known you anywhere."
"What? With my grey hair?"
"I love your grey hair."
It made him handsome, more lovable than ever. Anne loved it as she loved his face, tanned and tightened by sun and wind, the long hard-drawn lines, the thin, kind mouth, the clear, greenish brown eyes, quick and kind.
Colin stood by the dogcart in the station yard. Colin was changed. He was no longer the excited child who came rushing to you. He stood for you to come to him, serious and shy. His child's face was passing from prettiness to a fine, sombre beauty.
"What's happened to Col-Col? He's all different?"