old for a foundling hospital?

"How old are you?" he asked, abruptly.

She did not answer.

He looked at her, frowning.

"Don't!" she said. "It's ugly. I'm not quite forty. How old are you?"

"What?" said Merryon.

"Not--quite--forty," she said again, with extreme distinctness. "I'm
small for my age, I know. But I shall never grow any more now. How old
did you say you were?"

Merryon's eyes regarded her piercingly. "I should like the truth," he
said, in his short, grim way.

She made a grimace that turned into an impish smile. "Then you must
stick to the things that matter," she said. "That is--nobody's
business."

He tried to look severe, but very curiously failed. He picked up a plate
of sandwiches to mask a momentary confusion, and offered it to her.

Again, with simplicity, she accepted, and there fell a silence between
them while she ate, her eyes again upon the fire. Her face, in repose,
was the saddest thing he had ever seen. More than ever did she make him
think of a child that had been hurt.