"I knew you once and you was good to me," said the child musingly;
"but I got tired when I danced so much in the street. I don't ever
dance now, only with Argus."
"But, little sister, are you just sure, it's yourself alive? And
don't you mind I was Teddy, and we used to go walking in the Gardens
and on the Commons; and there was the good mammy at home that used
to rock you on her lap, and warm the pretty little feet in her
hands, and sing to you till you dropped asleep? Don't you mind them
things, Cherry darling?"
The child looked attentively in his face while he thus spoke, and at
the end nodded several times; while a light, like that of earliest
dawn, began to glimmer in her eyes.
"Tell me some more," said she briefly.
"And do you mind the picture-books I used to bring you home, and the
story of the Cock Robin you used to like so well to hear, and the
skip-jack you played with, and the big doll that mammy made for you,
and you called it Susan?"--
"O--h! Susan!" cried the child suddenly, and then stood all pale and
trembling, while her earnest eyes seemed searching in the past for
some dimly-remembered secret, which to lose was agony, to recall
impossible.
"Susan!" said she softly again. "Yes, there was Susan, somewhere,
and--Oh! tell me the rest, tell me who it was that loved me so!"
"Sure, it was Teddy loved you best of all," said the boy longingly:
for, though her eager eyes dwelt upon his face, it was not for him
or his that the depths of her heart were stirring; and, with the old
thrill of jealous pain, he felt it so.
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