"Girls always are the better for it, I suppose. I don't howl now. And really I did not often then."
"Not more than three times a week, on an average."
"Oh, I didn't! That is too bad."
"It was a safety-valve. You would have gone off in steam, otherwise."
"But what are you doing now, N—Mr. Fairfax? I mean—what are you—if you don't mind my putting the question? I know nothing of your history."
"Yet we seem to meet very much on the old level."
"I always fancied we should. We were such real friends!"
"Though the friendship has been in complete abeyance!"
"Fizzled out into nothing," she rejoined. "Well, it wasn't my fault. I wrote last."
"I beg your pardon; I wrote last, and had no answer."