This was what common sense would have dictated; but, just at that crisis, I did not happen to have any sense of this quality about me. My thoughts were wandering from the days of childhood up to that hour; they were in as much confusion, as though my brains had been stirred about with a wooden spoon. I contrived to stammer out something at last; and I believe the words were, "I have come to see you." "If that is your only business," said my mother, "now that you have seen me, you may go again." How familiar was the sound of her voice! It seemed to have been echoing, for years, from wall to wall in the mansion of my memory. I made no effort to avail myself of the permission she had so curtly granted; but continued gazing at the two--my eyes alternately turning from mother to daughter--in a manner that must have appeared rude enough. "Do you hear me?" said the old lady. "If you have no business here, why don't you go away?" There was an energy in her tone that touched another chord of memory. "It is certainly my mother," thought I, "and I am at home once more." My soul was overwhelmed with a thousand emotions--more strong than had ever stirred it before. I know not whether they were of pleasure or of pain: for I could not analyse them then, and have never felt them before or since. My actions were involuntary: for my thoughts were too much occupied to guide them. A sofa stood near; and, throwing myself upon it, I tried to realise the fact that eleven years had passed, since parting with my relatives a boy, and that I had met them again, and was a boy no longer! "Martha!" cried my mother, "go and bring a policeman!" The young girl had been gazing at me, long and earnestly. She continued her gaze, without heeding the command thus addressed to her. "Mother," rejoined she, after an interval, "we have seen this man before; I'm sure I have." "Did you not once live in Dublin, sir?" she asked, turning to me. "Yes, I once lived there--when a boy," I answered. "Then I must be mistaken," said she; "but I really thought I had seen you there." There was something so very absurd in this remark, that I could not help noticing it--even in my abstracted state of mind; and this very absurdity had the effect of awakening me from my reverie. It then suddenly occurred to the young girl, that she had not been in Dublin since she was a child herself; and, at the time she left that city, a young man of my appearance could not have been much more than a boy. "Perhaps, I am right after all?" said she. "I do believe that I've seen you in Dublin. Mother!" she added, turning to the old lady; "He knows who we are." Martha's first remark--about having seen me in Dublin--brought upon me the earnest gaze of my mother. She had often told me that when a man I would look like my father; and perhaps my features awakened within her some recollections of the past. She came up to me; and, speaking in a low, earnest voice, said: "Tell me who you are!"