"Another cousin of mine; on my mother's side. Lance is on my father's."
"He isn't so handsome. I seem to know the face."
"Ned never had much to boast of in the way of looks. He is a dear, kind-hearted fellow; always ready to do anything he can for any human being. So Is Lance, for the matter of that!"
"I wonder if I ever saw him," murmured Magda. "Perhaps he is like somebody I know." She turned away, remarking—"I once had a friend called Ned; but I haven't seen him for years. Not since I was eleven and he was seventeen. He never wrote."
"I'm afraid your friend was rather fickle."
Magda took up the photograph anew, and after a fresh scrutiny she glanced at the back.
"Why!" she cried. "It is! It's the same. It is Ned Fairfax!"
"Certainly; that is Ned Fairfax."
"But he used to be my friend. The only friend I ever made before I went to school. He and I were immense chums. How funny! Oh, how funny! I didn't even know where he was. We were always getting together, and I was a sort of pet of his for more than three years. I told him everything."
"How amusing! Now I think of it, his mother lived here for three or four years, when she first became a widow. He used to go to a school two miles off. I was sorry she did not send him to a public school. Still, he has turned out a good fellow; not so brilliant as Lance."