"I suppose if I had not called this afternoon, you would have gone without bidding me good-bye," he resumed, after a short pause.
"I have not said any good-byes," I answered with an effort to justify myself. "I didn't see the use" I added, half scornfully, "I am not the Amey Hampden to the world, now, that I used to be."
"You are to me—you will always be!"
This was a most stable friendship. How good and sincere he was!
"Thank you, Mr. Dalton, it is kind of you to say so, a friend in need, you know, is a friend indeed."
"It is the only time I could ever feel that I was your friend, Amey," he said, with a half melancholy voice, "even when you were a little child, you never took much notice of me, unless something had gone wrong."
I liked this allusion to the past, it was timely, and brought out our present relationship clearly and comfortably. I laughed, and looked at him freely, as I answered:
"That must have been pretty often, for it seems to me that things have been going wrong all my life," then fearing to strike a dangerous key-note, I added, hastily, "but I must not complain, there are hundreds of people more miserable than I in the world."
"I know one, at any rate, who is," he interrupted, in an undertone. "I have to thank you for returning my locket," he continued, in the same strain, as if it had been suggested by the first remark, "I had given it up as an irretrievable loss."
"Oh! then you got it safely," I exclaimed, with a forced gratification, "I am so glad it was found, for your sake."