me they were impudent fellows who talked nonsense - but I knew it
pleased her. I knew it quite as well as I know it now. I took the
opportunity of asking if she was at all acquainted with Mr. Brooks
of Sheffield, but she answered No, only she supposed he must be a
manufacturer in the knife and fork way.

Can I say of her face - altered as I have reason to remember it,
perished as I know it is - that it is gone, when here it comes
before me at this instant, as distinct as any face that I may
choose to look on in a crowded street? Can I say of her innocent
and girlish beauty, that it faded, and was no more, when its breath
falls on my cheek now, as it fell that night? Can I say she ever
changed, when my remembrance brings her back to life, thus only;
and, truer to its loving youth than I have been, or man ever is,
still holds fast what it cherished then?

I write of her just as she was when I had gone to bed after this
talk, and she came to bid me good night. She kneeled down
playfully by the side of the bed, and laying her chin upon her
hands, and laughing, said:

'What was it they said, Davy? Tell me again. I can't believe it.'

'"Bewitching -"' I began.

My mother put her hands upon my lips to stop me.

'It was never bewitching,' she said, laughing. 'It never could
have been bewitching, Davy. Now I know it wasn't!'