human
Arthur does not know me, she said, with a low, liquid voice, fuller than the common tones of women.
gpt
He forgets how long it is ago since we went away. He thinks you cannot have anything so big belonging to you, my little mother. But it is me, Arthur. Susan all the same.
human
Susan perhaps, since you say so--but not all the same,
gpt
And I daresay you don't know Alice either, said his sister.
human
I was little and Alice was foolish when we went away. At least I was little in Lonsdale, where nobody minded me. Somehow most people mind me now, because I am so big, I suppose; and Alice, instead of being foolish, is a little wise woman. Come here, Alice, and let my brother see you. You have heard of him every day for three years. At last here is Arthur; but what am I to do if he has forgotten me?
gpt
I have forgotten neither of you, said the young man. He was glad to escape from Susan's eyes, which somehow looked as if they were a bit of the sky, a deep serene of blue; and the little Alice imagined he did not look at her at all, and was a little mortified in her tender heart. Things began to grow familiar to him after a while. However wonderful they were, they were real creatures, who did not vanish away, but were close by him all the evening, moving about--this with lovely fairy lightness, that with majestic maiden grace--talking in a kind of dual, harmonious movement of sound, filling the soft spring night with a world of vague and strange fascination. The window was opened in their sitting-room, where they could see the lights and moving figures, and, farther off, the sea--and hear outside the English voices, which were sweet to hear to the strangers newly come home. Vincent, while he recovered himself, stood near this window by his mother's chair, paying her such stray filial attentions as he could in the bewilderment of his soul, and slowly becoming used to the two beautiful young women, unexpected apparitions, who transformed life itself and everything in it. Was one his real sister, strange as it seemed? and the other----? Vincent fell back and resigned himself to the strange, sweet, unlooked-for influence. They went up to London together next day. Sunshine did not disperse them into beautiful mists, as he had almost feared. It came upon him by glimpses to see that fiery sorrow and passion had acted like some tropical tempestuous sun upon his sister's youth; and the face of his love looked back upon him from the storm in which it died, as if somehow what was impossible might be possible again. Mrs. Mildmay, a wandering restless soul as she was, happened to be absent from London just then. Alice was still to stay with her dearest friends. The Nonconformist went back to his little home with the sensation of an enchanted prince in a fairy tale. Instead of the mud-coloured existence, what a glowing, brilliant firmament! Life became glorious again under their touch. As for Mrs. Vincent, she was too happy in getting home--in seeing Susan, after all the anguishes and struggles which no one knew of fully but herself, rising up in all the strength of her youth to this renewed existence--to feel as much distressed as she had expected about Arthur's temporary withdrawal from his profession. It was only a temporary withdrawal, she hoped. He still wore his clerical coat, and called himself