"Is it possible that you are Cristel Toller?" I said.
The question seemed to amuse her. "Why shouldn't I be Cristel Toller?" she asked.
"You were a little girl," I explained, "when I saw you last. You are so altered now—and so improved—that I should never have guessed you might be the daughter of Giles Toller of the mill, if I had not seen you opening the cottage door."
She acknowledged my compliment by a curtsey, which reminded me again of the village school. "Thank you, young man," she said smartly; "I wonder who you are?"
"Try if you can recollect me," I suggested.
"May I take a long look at you?"
"As long as you like."
She studied my face, with a mental effort to remember me, which gathered her pretty eyebrows together quaintly in a frown.
"There's something in his eyes," she remarked, not speaking to me but to herself, "which doesn't seem to be quite strange. But I don't know his voice, and I don't know his beard." She considered a little, and addressed herself directly to me once more. "Now I look at you again, you seem to be a gentleman. Are you one?"
"I hope so."