hers.

"Yes, my dear, I am still alive. But surely you cannot remember me,
Alison?"

The old look of almost stubborn honesty he recalled in the child came
into her eyes.

"I do--and I don't," she said, perplexed. "It seemed to me as if I ought
to have recognized you when I came up, and yet I hadn't the slightest
notion who you were. I knew you were somebody."

He shook his head, but did not speak.

"But you have always been a fact in my existence--that is what I want to
say," she went on. "It must be possible to remember a person and not
recognize him, that is what I feel. I can remember you coming to our
house in Ransome Street, and how I looked forward to your visits. And
you used to have little candy beans in your pockets," she cried. "Have
you now?"

His eyes were a little dimmed as he reached, smilingly, into the skirts
of a somewhat shiny but scrupulously brushed coat and produced a brightly
colored handful. She took one, and put it in her mouth:

"Oh," she said, "how good they were--Isn't it strange how a taste brings
back events? I can remember it all as if it were yesterday, and how I
used to sit on your knee, and mother would tell me not to bother you."

"And now--you are grown," he said.