“But, don’t you see?” he exclaimed, joyously,—“I’m Tom! I have found my name!”

III.

The rest of Tom’s name, however, remained as profoundly and as provokingly concealed in the wounded convolutions of his brain as ever. Columbine called him Mr. Tom, and it is not unlikely that the familiarity[25] of the monosyllable, which seemed to place them at once upon an intimate footing, had a strong influence upon their relations. The maiden had a crisp way of pronouncing the name, as if she were half conscious of a spice of impropriety in a term so familiar, and felt it, too, to be something of a joke, which was so wholly fascinating that the patient did not have to be very far advanced toward his normal condition of health and spirits to enjoy it so well as to reflect that the name so rendered ought to be enough for any man.

The

[25]

Mr. Tom soon began to gather up a few stray bits from his childhood, his memory apparently returning to its former state by the same slow road it had travelled from his birth to reach it.

“I remember a few beginnings,” he had said, hopefully, on the day following that of his first visit to the arbor. “I had a carved coral of a most luscious pink color. It is even now vaguely connected in my mind with the idea of eating; so I infer that I must have cherished a fond delusion that it was good to eat.”

“It is at least good to remember,” Columbine returned, laughing. “It wouldn’t be a bad idea to open an account of things recovered[26] from the sea of the past. You can begin by putting down: Item, one coral.”

[26]

“Yes; and one nurse. I distinctly recall the nurse. She had a large mole on her chin. Yes; I can certainly swear to the nurse.”

He was in excellent spirits to-day. The dawning of recollection gave promise of the restoration of complete remembrance; the day was enchanting; his appetite and his luncheon came to a wonderfully good agreement, while a prettier serving-maid than Miss Dysart could hardly be found.

“It must be very like being a child again,” she observed, thoughtfully; “and that is a thing, you know, for which the poets are always sighing.”

“You will have the advantage of growing up with me,” was his gay retort, “if this process continues. Only 

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