from her and picked up his letters.

"Thank you," she said. "But--there's no need to tell me that,
because I know it already. Now I wonder if you'll tell me
something more?"

Ransford turned back with a sudden apprehension.

"Well?" he asked brusquely. "What?"

"When are you going to tell me all about--Dick and myself?"
she asked. "You promised that you would, you know, some day.
And--a whole year's gone by since then. And--Dick's
seventeen! He won't be satisfied always--just to know no more
than that our father and mother died when we were very little,
and that you've been guardian--and all that you have been!--to
us. Will he, now?"

Ransford laid down his letters again, and thrusting his hands
in his pockets, squared his shoulders against the mantelpiece.
"Don't you think you might wait until you're twenty-one?" he
asked.

"Why?" she said, with a laugh. "I'm just twenty--do you
really think I shall be any wiser in twelve months? Of course
I shan't!"

"You don't know that," he replied. "You may be--a great deal
wiser."