`My gracious me! You are really the last person in the world I should have thought of seeing, I am sure!'

Tom was sorry to hear her speaking in her old manner. He had not expected that. Yet he did not feel it a contradiction that he should be sorry to see her so unlike her old self, and sorry at the same time to hear her speaking in her old manner. The two things seemed quite natural.

`I wonder you find any gratification in coming to see me. I can't think what put it in your head. I never had much in seeing you. There was no love lost between us, Mr. Pinch, at any time, I think.'

Her bonnet lay beside her on the sofa, and she was very busy with the ribbons as she spoke. Much too busy to be conscious of the work her fingers did.

`We never quarrelled,' said Tom. -- Tom was right in that, for one person can no more quarrel without an adversary, than one person can play at chess, or fight a duel. `I hoped you would be glad to shake hands with an old friend. Don't let us rake up bygones,' said Tom. `If I ever offended you, forgive me.'

She looked at him for a moment; dropped her bonnet from her hands; spread them before her altered face, and burst into tears.

`Oh, Mr. Pinch!' she said, `although I never used you well, I did believe your nature was forgiving. I did not think you could be cruel.'

She spoke as little like her old self now, for certain, as Tom could possibly have wished. But she seemed to be appealing to him reproachfully, and he did not understand her.

`I seldom showed it -- never -- I know that. But I had that belief in you, that if I had been asked to name the person in the world least likely to retort upon me, I would have named you, confidently.'

`Would have named me!' Tom repeated.

`Yes,' she said with energy, `and I have often thought so.'

After a moment's reflection, Tom sat himself upon a chair beside her.

`Do you believe,' said Tom, `oh, can you think, that what I said just now, I said with any but the true and plain intention which my words professed? I mean it, in the spirit and the letter. If I ever offended you, forgive me; I may have done so, many times. You never injured or offended me. How, then, could I possibly retort, if even I were stern and bad enough to wish to do it!'

After a little while she thanked him, through her tears and sobs, and told him she had never been at once so sorry and so comforted, since she left home. Still she wept bitterly; and it was the greater pain to Tom to see her weeping, from her standing in especial need, just then, of sympathy and tenderness.

`Come, come!' said Tom, `you used to be as cheerful as the day was long.'

`Ah! used!' she cried, in such a tone as rent Tom's heart.

`And will be again,' said Tom.

`No, never more. No, never, never more. If you should talk with old Mr. Chuzzlewit, at any time,' she added, looking hurriedly into his face -- `I sometimes thought he liked you, but suppressed it -- will you promise me to tell him that you saw me here, and that I said I bore in mind the time we talked together in the churchyard?'

Tom promised that he would.