foolish things about the months they had been together, and pretend to regret them. Why should he regret them? Lydia imagined herself saying much that would not be true, that she was impatient to get back, that the quiet of the Fells would be delightful after so much wandering; and much besides which would pique him and wound him, and perhaps goad him to say other unpleasant things in return. And then all at once, without any doing of hers, her thoughts gave a leap back to to-night, and there began to float and move before her all the new faces never seen before, never, probably, to be seen again, which for an hour or two had filled her with such strange, strong interest. From the moment Mr. Isaac Oliver had been announced, startling her out of herself, until now, when still discussing him, she had left the rest of the party in the hall, the encounter had agitated and disturbed her. “We are of the same country, and I know what you think--but it is not that.” What did he mean?--it is not that! and why did a stranger whom she had never seen before look at her so, and understand her so strangely? Her heart began to beat loudly once more when she thought of her impertinent production of old Isaac, when seated beside her silent host at the table, taunting him with the old man; and he understood her--that was the strange thing. If he did not really belong to old Isaac Oliver, how was it that he understood her? When he looked at her with that curious appeal, as if saying “Do not vex me--do not trouble me,” there would have been no meaning in it if he had not known what she meant; and how could he know if it was not true? Lydia felt herself caught as in a net of confusing questions and thoughts. Another man would have been surprised; he would have asked “Who is this namesake of mine? Tell me about him.” But this man did not ask a question; he _knew_. She felt that from the first moment she had perceived this involuntarily, and that her little pricks of questions could not have had any point if he had not known old Isaac, and if she had not felt that he knew him. Mr. Bonamy, for instance, did not know at all, and asked natural questions--who the gentleman was? the gentleman! if he was a neighbour, a farmer, a yeoman?--none of which things Mr. Oliver so much as suggested. Then who was this that knew Isaac Oliver, that knew her own name she began to remember, starting when he heard it first, as she had started when she heard his?