system of feeling. On the contrary, I had preferred to keep the matter to myself. I liked entering his presence covered with a cloud he had not seen through, while he stood before me under a ray of special illumination which shone all partial over his head, trembled about his feet, and cast light no farther.
Well I knew that to him it could make little difference, were I to come forward and announce "This is Lucy Snowe!" So I kept back in my teacher's place; and as he never asked my name, so I never gave it. He heard me called "Miss", and "Miss Lucy"; he never heard the surname, "Snowe". As to spontaneous recognition—though I, perhaps, was still less changed than he—the idea never approached his mind, and why should I suggest it?
During tea, Dr. John was kind, as it was his nature to be; that meal over, and the tray carried out, he made a cosy arrangement of the cushions in a corner of the sofa, and obliged me to settle amongst them. He and his mother also drew to the fire, and ere we had sat ten minutes, I caught the eye of the latter fastened steadily upon me. Women are certainly quicker in some things than men.
"Well", she exclaimed, presently; "I have seldom seen a stronger likeness! Graham, have you observed it?"
"Observed what? What ails the Old Lady now? How you stare, mamma! One would think you had an attack of second-sight".
"Tell me, Graham, of whom does that young lady remind you?" pointing to me.
"Mamma, you put her out of countenance. I often tell you abruptness is your fault; remember, too, that to you she is a stranger, and does not know your ways".
"Now, when she looks down; now, when she turns sideways, who is she like, Graham?"
"Indeed, mamma, since you propound the riddle, I think you ought to solve it!"
"And you have known her some time, you say—ever since you first began to attend the school in the Rue Fossette;—yet you never mentioned to me that singular resemblance!"
"I could not mention a thing of which I never thought, and which I do not now acknowledge. What can you mean?"
