You're very kind." "Do you know that you're changed--a little ?" She just hesitated.

"Yes--a good deal." "I don't mean for the worse, of course; and yet how can I say for the better ?" "I think I shall have no scruple in saying that to YOU," she bravely returned.
"Ah well, for me--it's a long time.

It would be a pity there shouldn't be something to show for it." They sat down and she asked him about his sisters, with other enquiries of a somewhat perfunctory kind.

He answered her questions as if they interested him, and in a few moments she saw--or believed she saw--that he would press with less of his whole weight than of yore.

Time had breathed upon his heart and, without chilling it, given it a relieved sense of having taken the air.