"Fourteen."
"And fourteen years ago is not so long, long ago, little Minnie."
Minnie repeated her caressing action.
"To you it isn't perhaps, but it is to me. It seems almost," she said, placing Joshua's hand upon her eyes, and closing them, "as if I had nothing to do with it. Yet I must have had; for mother was mixed up with what I was thinking.
"But I shall think of something else now that you are here," she said presently. "I am going to listen."
With the hand that was free she took something from her pocket, and placing it to her ear, bent her head closer to the ground. She was so long in that attitude of watchful silence, that Joshua cried "Minnie" to arouse her.
"Hush!" she said; "you must not interrupt me. I am listening. I can almost hear it speak."
"Hear what speak?" asked Joshua, wondering.
Minnie directed his fingers to her ear, and he felt something smooth and cold.
"It is a shell," she said softly, "and I am listening to the sea."