"She had a low dress on, I suppose--bare arms and shoulders, and you had never seen her so before."
"Yes," he said, surprised at such acumen, "I suppose that was it. We all used to bathe together and run about the sands. But that night she seemed to grow up all of a sudden--and so did we."
"And what does her brother say to it--and your grandfather?"
"We're to say nothing more about it for a year. You see, this war is coming on and you never can tell----"
"War is horror," she said, with a shudder. "I have seen fighting in Spain and in the streets of Paris. It is terrible. You may neither of you come back alive. If only one comes, then, I suppose----"
"Yes, that would settle it all."
"And you do not remember your mother?" she asked, after a pause.
"We never knew her," he said thoughtfully, bethinking him suddenly of Lord Deseret and that curious saying of his. "She died when we were born, and nobody has told us about her. Old Mrs. Lee must remember her, but she would never tell us, and Sir Denzil--well, you can't ask him about anything--at least, not to get any good from it."
"He has been good to you both?"
"Oh yes, in his way. But if it hadn't been for Mr. Eager----. We were growing up just little savages, running wild In the sand-hills, you know. And then he came, and it has made all the difference in the world to us."