"I love it!" she answered enthusiastically. "And I may never see it all
again," she added after a little pause.

"Never?" Marcello started a little. "Are you going away?"

"We are going to Rome to-day. But that is not what I mean. We have
always come down every year for ever so long. How long is it, Marcello?
We were quite small the, first time."

"It must be five years. Four or five--ever since my mother bought the
land here."

"We were mere children," said Aurora, with the dignity of a grown
person. "That is all over."

"I wish it were not!" Marcello sighed.

"How silly you are!" observed Aurora, throwing back her beautiful head.
"But then, I am sure I am much more grown up than you are, though you
are nineteen, and I am not quite eighteen."

"You are seventeen," said Marcello firmly.

"I shall be eighteen on my next birthday!" retorted Aurora with warmth.
"Then we shall see who is the more grown up. I shall be in society, and
you--why, you will not even be out of the University."

She said this with the contempt which Marcello's extreme youth deserved.