She did not know me--that was evident; and yet there was a look of doubt and hesitation in her face, while after a moment's wonder as to how I should address her, I saw her countenance change, and troubled no more about etiquette, but, carried away by my feelings, I exclaimed: "Hetty! dear Hetty!" and clasped her hands in mine. CHAPTER SIXTY ONE. MY MEETING WITH MY ENEMY. These things are a mystery. No doubt we two, parting as we did, boy and girl, ought to have met formally as strangers, perhaps have been re-introduced, and I ought to have made my approaches _en regle_, but all I knew then was that the bright, affectionate little girl who had been so kind to me had grown into a beautiful woman, whom I felt that I dearly loved; and as for Hetty, as she looked up in my face in a quiet, trusting way, she calmly told me that she had always felt that I should come back some day, and that though she hardly recognised me at first, she was not a bit surprised. Terribly prosaic and unromantic all this, no doubt; but all young people are not driven mad by persecution, and do not tie their affections up in knots and tangles which can never perhaps be untied. All I know is that I remember thinking that when Adam awoke and found Eve by his side in Paradise, he could not have felt half so happy as I did then; and that, walking slowly back with Hetty's little hand resting upon my arm, and held in its place by one twice as large, I thought Paradise might have been a very pleasant kind of place, but that this present-day world would do for me. We said very little, much as we wanted to say, but walked on, treading as it were upon air, till, as if in a moment, we were back at the town, when she said with a quiver in her voice: "I must leave you now. Papa will be waiting for me to pour out his coffee. He will not touch it unless I do." "You are in mourning for Mrs Blakeford," I said, and my eyes fell upon the little shabby silver brooch I had given her all those years ago. "Yes, and papa has not been the same since she died. He has very bad health now, and is sadly changed. He is in some great trouble, too, but I don't know what." I did; and I walked on thoughtfully by her side till we reached the gate, where we stopped, and she laid her hand in mine. But the next moment my mind was made up, and, drawing her arm through mine, and trying with a look to infuse some of my assurance, I walked with her into the house, and into the apparently strangely dwarfed sitting-room. "Who's that?" cried a peevish voice. "I want my coffee, Hetty. It's very late. Has the post come in? Who's that, I say, who's that?" I stared in astonishment at the little withered yellow man with grizzly hair and sunken eyes, and asked myself--Is this the Mr Blakeford who used to make me shudder and shrink with dread?