I did not think it was you--" she began; then seeing a
stranger, stopped short in the middle of her speech.

"I am afraid I have startled you," said the gentleman in
English-French, but with a pleasant voice and manner, "and
disappointed you too."

"I beg your pardon, Monsieur," she answered, "I thought it was
papa; I have been looking for him so long," and she turned
round to the window again.

It was five years since Horace Graham and Madeleine had spent
an hour together in the courtyard at Chaudfontaine, so that it
was not surprising that they did not at once recognise each
other at this second unforeseen meeting; the young man, as
well as the child, had then been of an age to which five years
cannot be added without bringing with them most appreciable
changes. For Graham, these years had been precisely that
transition period in which a lad separates himself from the
aggregate mass of youth, and stands forth in the world as a
man of his own right, according to that which is in him. This
tall, thin, brown young army doctor, who has passed brilliant
examinations, who is already beginning to be known favourably
in the profession, whose name has appeared at the end of more
than one approved article in scientific Reviews; who has
travelled, seen something of Italy, Switzerland, Belgium; who
for five years has been studying, thinking, living through
youthful experiences and failures, and out-living some
youthful illusions, cannot fail, one may be sure, to be a
different personage, in many respects, from the fresh-hearted
medical student who had sauntered away an idle Sunday amongst
the woods and valleys round Chaudfontaine, and had looked with
curious, half wondering eyes at the new little world disclosed
to him at the hotel. As for our little Madelon, the small,
round, pinafored child was hardly recognisable in this slim
little girl, in white frock, with brown hair that hung in
short wayward tangling waves, instead of curling in soft
ringlets all over her head; and yet Graham, who rarely forgot
a face, was haunted by a vague remembrance of her eyes, with
the peculiar look, half-startled, half-confiding, with which
they met the first glance of strangers. Madelon's brown eyes
were the greatest charm of a face which was hardly pretty yet,
though it had the promise of beauty in after years; to liken
them to those of some dumb, soft, dark-eyed animal is to use a
trite comparison; and yet there is, perhaps, no other that