Elgar turned to his companion, and said in a musing tone, with a smile: "How long is it since we saw each other every day in Manchester ?" "Seven years since that short time you spent with us." "Seven; yes.

You were not twelve then; I was not quite twenty-one.

As regards change, a lifetime might have passed since, with both of us.
Yet I don't feel very old, not oppressively ancient." "And I'm sure I don't." They laughed together.
"You are younger than you were then," he continued, in his most characteristic voice, the voice which was musical and alluring, and suggestive of his nature's passionate depths and heights.

"You have grown into health of body and soul, and out of all the evil things that would have robbed you of natural happiness.

Nothing ever made me more glad than first seeing you at the villa.