It's like seeing one raised from the dead." Then she sat down at his side, and, apparently forgetting Jim, talked long and tenderly of the past.

She remembered Mrs.Benedict so well! And she had so many times carried flowers and placed them upon her grave! She told him about the troubles in the town, and the numbers of poor people who had risked their little all and lost it in the great speculation; of those who were still hoping against hope that they should see their hard-earned money again; of the execrations that were already beginning to be heaped upon Mr.Belcher; of the hard winter that lay before the village, and the weariness of sympathy which had begun to tell upon her energies.

Life, which had been once so full of the pleasure of action and industry, was settling, more and more, into dull routine, and she could see nothing but trouble ahead, for herself and for all those in whom she was interested.
Mr.Benedict, for the first time since Jim had rescued him from the alms-house, became wholly himself.

The sympathy of a woman unlocked his heart, and he talked in his old way.

He alluded to his early trials with entire freedom, to his long illness and mental alienation, to his hopes for his boy, and especially to his indebtedness to Jim.