"Of course I know what words you mean!" he cried. "I wanted to tell you of something I had seen for weeks, but that you didn't seem to see. And I can see it still; and there's no mistake about it. I'm as certain sure of it, as that I am sitting on this chair. It was about the sec'tary, and some one else; and yet not anybody else, because they're both the same. May I tell you, Mr. Horn? Can you bear it, do you think?" "The Golden Shoemaker" regarded the eager face of his little friend with glistening eyes; and Miss Jemima, leaning towards him over the framework of the iron bedstead, listened with an intent countenance, from which all trace of disfavour had vanished away. "Yes," said "Cobbler" Horn, in grave, calm tones; "tell us all. We are not unprepared." "Thank you," said the little man, fervently. "But, oh, I wish you knew! I wish God had been pleased to make it known to you," he added with a reminiscence of his Old Testament studies, "in a dream and vision of the night. Oh, my dear friend, don't you see that what you've been longing and praying for all these years has come to pass--as we always knew it would; and--and that she's come back! she's come back? There, that's what I meant!" "Then it really was so," said "Cobbler" Horn. "I'm surprised I did not perceive your meaning at the time." Tommy thought him wonderfully calm. "But I must tell you, Tommy, that we have now very much reason to think that your surmise is correct." "_Surmise_ is not the word, Mr. Horn; I know she's come back!" "Of course you do," interposed Miss Jemima, in emphatic tones. Tommy looked gratefully towards the hitherto dreadful lady; and she regarded him with eyes which seemed to say, "you have won my favour once for all." "Can you tell us, Tommy," asked "Cobbler" Horn, "what has made you so very sure?" "Yes," replied Tommy, with energy, "I'll tell you. Everything has made me sure--the way she walks along the street, with her head up, and putting her foot down as if a regiment of soldiers wouldn't stop her; and her manner of coming into the shop and saying, 'How are you to-day, Mr. Dudgeon?' and her sitting in the old arm-chair, and putting her head on one side like a knowing little bird, and asking questions about everything, and letting her eyes shine on you like stars. Begging your pardon, Mr. Horn, she's just the little lassie all over. Why I should know her with my eyes shut, if she were only to speak up, and say, 'Well, Tommy, how are you, to-day?'" "But," asked "Cobbler" Horn, whose heart, secretly, was almost bursting with delight, "may you not be mistaken, after all?" "I am not mistaken," replied Tommy firmly. "But it's such a long while ago," suggested "Cobbler" Horn; "and--and she will be very much altered by this time. You _can't_ be sure that a young woman is the same person as a little girl you haven't seen for more than a dozen years."