'
'Yes! that is the usual sentiment; but I half suspect that it is
a commonplace, invented to cover our embarrassment under such
circumstances; for, after all, "an old friend" so situated is a person
whom we have not seen for many years, and most probably not cared to
see.'
[Illustration: frontis-p79]
'You are indeed severe.'
'Oh! no. I think there is nothing more painful than parting with old
friends; but when we have parted with them, I am half afraid they are
lost.'
'Absence, then, with you is fatal?'
'Really, I never did part with any one I greatly loved; but I suppose it
is with me as with most persons.'
'Yet you have resided abroad, and for many years?'
'Yes; but I was too young then to have many friends; and, in fact, I
accompanied perhaps all that I possessed.'
'How I regret that it was not in my power to accept your kind invitation
to Dacre in the Spring!'
'Oh! My father would have been very glad to see you; but we really are
dull kind of people, not at all in your way, and I really do not think
that you lost much amusement.'
'What better amusement, what more interesting occupation, could I have
had than to visit the place where I passed my earliest and my happiest
hours? 'Tis nearly fifteen years since I was at Dacre.
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