Did he think that on seeing her again he would care for her as before?
Did he imagine that intervening years, which had brought misfortune to her family, would bring her more within his grasp?
Or was his intention in writing still less pleasing to her than this?
Had he written, speaking so guardedly of past friendship, with the desire to ward off any hope she might cherish that he had remained unmarried for her sake?
Sophia's lips did not curl in scorn over this last suggestion, because she was holding her little court of inquiry in a mental region quite apart from her emotions.
This woman's character was, however, revealed in this, that she passed easily from her queries as to what the man in question did, or would be likely to, think of her.

A matter of real, possibly of paramount, interest to her was to wonder whether his life had really expanded into the flower of which she had thought the bud gave promise.

She tried to look back and estimate the truth of her youthful instinct, which had told her he was a man above other men.

And if that had been so, was he less or more now than he had been then?
Had he been a benefit to the new country to which he had come?
Had the move from the Old World to this--the decision in which she had rashly aided with youthful advice--been a good or a bad thing for him and for the people to whom he had come?
From this she fell a-thinking upon her own life as, in the light of Trenholme's letter, the contrast of her present womanly self with the bright, audacious girl of that past time was set strongly before her.

It is probably as rare for any one really to wish to be the self of any former time--to wish to be younger--as it is really to wish to be any one else.