the Lady's writing. Anybody could have seen that it wasn't our writing.
It was too dressy. He put on his glasses. He read it again.

--the smell of an old tattered baseball glove--that's been
lying in the damp grass--side of a brook--June Time.

"Good Lord!" he cried out. "Good Lord!"--He couldn't seem to swallow
through his collar. "Not anyone else!" he gasped. "In all the
world!--There couldn't possibly be anyone else! It must--It _must_ be
little Annie Dun Vorlees herself!"

He rushed to the window. There was a grocery boy driving by.

"Hi! Hi there!" he called out. "Don't mind anybody's orders just now!
Take me quick to the Hotel!--It's an Emergency I tell you! She may be
gone before I get there!"

We sat down on the sofa and curled up our legs. Our legs felt queer.

My Mother and Father sat down on the other sofa. They looked queer all
over. They began to talk about the Village. It wasn't exactly the
Village that we knew. It was as though they talked about the Village
when it was a _child_. They talked about when the Bridge was first
built. They talked about the Spring when the Big Freshet swept the
meadow. They talked about the funny color of Jason the Blacksmith's
first long trousers. They talked about a tiny mottled Fawn that they
had caught once with their own hands at a Sunday School picnic in the
Arbutus Woods. They talked about the choir rehearsals in the old white
church. They talked about my Father's Graduation Essay in the High
School. It was like History that was sweet instead of just true. It made
you feel a little lonely in your throat. Our Tame Coon came and curled
up on our legs. It made our legs feel better. The clock struck nine. Our
Father and Mother forgot all about us. Pretty soon we forgot all about
ourselves. When we woke up the Old Doctor had come back. He was standing
by the table in the lamplight talking to my Father and my Mother.

He looked just the same--only different--like a portrait in a newspaper
that somebody had tried to copy. All around the inner edges of his
bigness it was as though someone had sketched the outline of a slimmer
man.--It looked nice.

"Well it _was_ little Annie Dun Vorlees!" he said.

"Was it indeed?" said my Father.

"Hasn't changed a mite!" said the Old Doctor. "Not a mite!--Oh of course
she's wearing silks now instead of gingham.--And her hair?--Well perhaps
it's just a little bit gray but----"

"Gray hair's very pretty," said my Mother.