Solitary, on the long level of the sand-bank, I perceived a group that
became discernible as three persons attached to an invalid's chair,
moving leisurely toward us. I was in the state of mind between
divination and doubt when the riddle is not impossible to read, would but
the heart cease its hurry an instant; a tumbled sky where the break is
coming. It came. The dear old days of my wanderings with Temple framed
her face. I knew her without need of pause or retrospect. The crocus
raising its cup pointed as when it pierced the earth, and the crocus
stretched out on earth, wounded by frost, is the same flower. The face
was the same, though the features were changed. Unaltered in expression,
but wan, and the kind blue eyes large upon lean brows, her aspect was
that of one who had been half caught away and still shook faintly in the
relaxing invisible grasp.

We stopped at a distance of half-a-dozen paces to allow her time for
recollection. She eyed us softly in a fixed manner, while the sea-wind
blew her thick redbrown hair to threads on her cheek. Colour on the fair
skin told us we were recognized.

'Princess Ottilia!' said my father.

'It is I, my friend,' she answered. 'And you?'

'With more health than I am in need of, dearest princess.'

'And he?'

'Harry Richmond! my son, now of age, commencing his tour; and he has not
forgotten the farewell bunch of violets.'