perhaps looked ever so little larger; his face was always thin, it was perhaps a shade thinner; he always stooped, he stooped perhaps a little more. But, even as one can look at a portrait and say ' I see no point on which it is not like, yet it really has no resemblance to the man,' so, though Charlie was changed so little, yet he was not like him with whom she had walked on the hot Sunday afternoon of July last. Then it was summer, now it was autumn; and, instead of the broad brightness of sun, a little bitter wind stirred among the trees. For the flame of life there was substituted the shadow of death, intangible, indescribable, untranslatable into definite thought, but unmistakable.
But her pause was only momentary; the quick, practical part of her nature leaped instinctively to the surface to do its duty. She was here, if possible, to help, and she came quickly forward to meet him.
' My dear Charlie,' she said, ' it is good to see you again.'
She took both his hands in hers.
' You bad boy,' she said, ' to get ill. Judy told me. It was not her fault; I made her.'
' I meant to tell you myself,' said he; ' but it does not matter. Now, that is enough of that subject; my mother and I never talk of it—we hardly ever think of it. Now, will you take off your things?'
Sybil drew her cloak round her.
' No, certainly not,' said she. ' Judy told me you lived in a summer-house. Well, I did not come down here to see you through the window; lead on to the summer-house.'
' It will be too cold for you,' said he.
' It will be nothing of the kind.'
They talked till dinner on indifferent subjects; she sketched New York for him with a brilliant, if not a very flattering, touch; she did her best for the Revels, but suddenly in the middle broke down.
