friendship that meant a great deal to him, and out of his busy life had set
apart time enough to enjoy that friendship. His mind was full of her that
day. He made me see her again, feel her presence, revived all my old
affection for her.

"I can't see," he said impetuously, "why you have never written anything
about Antonia."

I told him I had always felt that other people--he himself, for one knew
her much better than I. I was ready, however, to make an agreement with
him; I would set down on paper all that I remembered of Antonia if he would
do the same. We might, in this way, get a picture of her.

He rumpled his hair with a quick, excited gesture, which with him often
announces a new determination, and I could see that my suggestion took hold
of him. "Maybe I will, maybe I will!" he declared. He stared out of the
window for a few moments, and when he turned to me again his eyes had the
sudden clearness that comes from something the mind itself sees. "Of
course," he said, "I should have to do it in a direct way, and say a great
deal about myself. It's through myself that I knew and felt her, and I've
had no practice in any other form of presentation."

I told him that how he knew her and felt her was exactly what I most wanted
to know about Antonia. He had had opportunities that I, as a little girl
who watched her come and go, had not.

Months afterward Jim Burden arrived at my apartment one stormy winter
afternoon, with a bulging legal portfolio sheltered under his fur overcoat.
He brought it into the sitting-room with him and tapped it with some pride
as he stood warming his hands.