Brenda's Ward / A Sequel to 'Amy in Acadia'

It's simply perfect.
I thought you would like it, Martine.
Like it! I should say so, but it isn't 'it,' it's everything,—the room, the house, you, Boston. Really, you don't know how glad I am to be here, Brenda—I mean Mrs. Weston.
What nonsense!
That I should like things?
No, that you should call me 'Mrs. Weston.' It's bad enough to be growing old, so don't try to make me feel like a grandmother. Truly, I can't believe that I am a day older than when I was sixteen, and yet when I was sixteen, eighteen seemed the end of everything worth while. I could not imagine myself old, and serious, and—twenty.
Martine smiled at Brenda's emphasis of the last word, and as she smiled she laid her hand on her friend's arm.
Come, she said, just look in this mirror. A person who did not know could not tell which is the older, you or I.
Again, nonsense!
Yet even as she spoke Brenda could but admit to herself that Martine had an air of dignity suited to one much older than a girl of seventeen. But if she had thought Martine altogether grown up, she quickly changed her opinion, for at this very moment Martine sank on the floor beside her, and as her laughter re-echoed through the rooms Brenda was driven to say:
My dear, don't talk to me about being grown up. You act precisely like a child of ten. What in the world is the matter?