"Why, you know more about my mother than I do," says Lilian, with some faint envy in her tones.
"Yes,"—hastily, having already learned how little a thing can cause an outbreak, when one party is bent on war,—"but you must not blame me for that. I could not help it."
"No,"—regretfully,—"I suppose not. Before I was born, you say. How old that seems to make you!"
"Why?"—laughing. "Because I was able to read eighteen years ago? I was only nine, or perhaps ten, then."
"I never could do my sums," says Lilian: "I only know it sounds as though you were the Ancient Mariner or Methuselah, or anybody in the last stage of decay."
"And yet I am not so very old, Lilian. I am not yet thirty."
"Well, that's old enough. When I am thirty I shall take to caps with borders, and spectacles, and long black mittens, like nurse. Ha, ha!" laughs Lilian, delighted at the portrait of herself she has drawn, "shan't I look nice then?"
"I dare say you will," says Guy, quite seriously. "But I would advise you to put off the wearing of them for a while longer. I don't think thirty old. I am not quite that."
"A month or two don't signify,"—provokingly; "and as you have had apparently a very good life I don't think it manly of you to fret because you are drawing to the close of it. Some people would call it mean. There, never mind your age: tell me something more about my mother. Did you love her?"
"One could not help loving her, she was so gentle, so thoroughly kind-hearted."