Page:Doctor Grimshawe's Secret (1883).djvu/383

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
APPENDIX.
359

way that made Edward wonder whether he could be an Englishman. If so, he must have known that Edward was an American, and have been trying to adapt his manners to those of a democratic freedom.

"Mr. Redclyffe, I believe," said he.

Redclyffe bowed, with the stiff caution of an Englishman; for, with American mobility, he had learned to be stiff.

"I think I have had the pleasure of knowing—at least of meeting—you very long ago," said the gentleman. "But I see you do not recollect me."

Redclyffe confessed that the stranger had the advantage of him in his recollection of a previous acquaintance.

"No wonder," said the other, "for, as I have already hinted, it was many years ago."

"In my own country then, of course," said Redclyffe.

"In your own country certainly," said the stranger, "and when it would have required a penetrating eye to see the distinguished Mr. Redclyffe. the representative of American democracy abroad, in the little pale-faced, intelligent boy, dwelling with an old humorist in the corner of a graveyard."

At these words Redclyffe sent back his recollections, and, though doubtfully, began to be aware that this must needs be the young Englishman who had come to his guardian on such a singular errand as to search an old grave. It must be he, for it could be nobody else; and, in truth, he had a sense of his identity,—which, however, did not express itself by anything that he could confidently remember in his looks, manner, or voice,—yet, if anything, it was most in the voice. But the image which, on searching, he found in his mind of a fresh-colored young Englishman, with light hair and a frank, pleasant face, was terribly