"The fact is, I feel a great deal better and stronger," she said.
"Quite well, Mary, and stronger than ever you were before?"
"Who is it that calls me Mary? I have had nobody for a long time to call
me Mary; the friends of my youth are all dead. I think that you must be
right, although the doctor, I feel sure, thought me very bad last night.
I should have got alarmed if I had not fallen asleep again."
"And then woke up well?"
"Quite well: it is wonderful, but quite true. You seem to know a great
deal about me."
"I know everything about you. You have had a very pleasant life, and do
you think you have made the best of it? Your old age has been very
pleasant."
"Ah! you acknowledge that I am old, then?" cried Lady Mary with a smile.
"You are old no longer, and you are a great lady no longer. Don't you see
that something has happened to you? It is seldom that such a great change
happens without being found out."
"Yes; it is true I have got better all at once. I feel an extraordinary
renewal of strength. I seem to have left home without knowing it; none of
my people seem near me. I feel very much as if I had just awakened from a
long dream. Is it possible," she said, with a wondering look, "that I
have dreamed all my life, and after all am just a girl at home?" The idea
was ludicrous, and she laughed.
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