“But to whom, then, is this memory painful, Grizel?”

Again she cast that glance at him.  “To her,” she whispered.

“’That little girl’!”

“Yes; the child I used to be.  You see, she never grew up, and so they are not distant memories to her.  I try to rub them out of her mind by giving her prettier things to think of.  I go to the places where she was most unhappy, and tell her sweet things about you.  I am not morbid, am I, in thinking of her still as some one apart from myself?  You know how it began, in the lonely days when I used to look at her in mamma’s mirror, and pity her, and fancy that she was pitying me and entreating me to be careful.  Always when I think I see her now, she seems to be looking anxiously at me and saying, ‘Oh, do be careful!’ And the sweet things I tell her about you are meant to show her how careful I have become.  Are you laughing at me for this?  I sometimes laugh at it myself.”

“No, it is delicious,” he answered her, speaking more lightly than he felt.  “What a numskull you make, Grizel, of any man who presumes to write about women!  I am at school again, and you are Miss Ailie teaching me the alphabet.  But I thought you lost that serious little girl on the doleful day when she heard you say that you loved me best.”

“She came back.  She has no one but me.”

“And she still warns you against me?”

Grizel laughed gleefully.  “I am too clever for her,” she said.  “I do all the talking.  I allow her to listen only.  And you must not blame her for distrusting you; I have said such things against you to her!  Oh, the things I said!  On the first day I saw you, for instance, after you came back to Thrums.  It was in church.  Do you remember?”

“I should like to know what you said to her about me that day.”

“Would you?” Grizel asked merrily.  “Well, let me see.  She was not at church—­she never went there, you remember; but of course she was curious to hear about you, and I had no sooner got home than she came to me and said, ‘Was he there?’ ‘Yes,’ I said.  ‘Is he much changed?’ she asked.  ‘He has a beard,’ I said.  ’You know that is not what I really mean,’ she said, and then I said, ’I don’t think he is so much changed that it is impossible to recognize him again.’”

Tommy interrupted her:  “Now what did you mean by that?”

“I meant that I thought you were a little annoyed to find the congregation looking at Gavinia’s baby more than at you!”

“Grizel, you are a wretch, but perhaps you were right.  Well, what more did the little inquisitor want to know?”

“She asked me if I felt any of my old fear of you, and I said No, and then she clapped her hands with joy.  And she asked whether you looked at me as if you were begging me to say I still thought you a wonder, and I said I thought you did——­”

“Grizel!”

“Oh, I told her ever so many dreadful things as soon as I found them out.  I told her the whole story of your ankle, sir, for instance.”