"I suppose you remember them quite well?"
"Not very, sir; I have never seen a great deal of them. We lived in the country, and excepting when we went to town for a visit, we were not together. You met them abroad, did you not, sir?"
"Yes; we travelled through Switzerland together, and I saw them very frequently last winter in Paris."
"Oh!" I exclaimed, eagerly, quite forgetting my dignified resolutions, "do tell me about them. Is Josephine taller than I, and is she pretty? They say she sings so beautifully! Does she?"
"Where shall I begin?" he said, with a smile. "Such an avalanche of questions overwhelms me. First, as to height; well (thoughtfully), let me consider. It is difficult to judge. Stand up, and let me see how tall you are."
I sprang up, in perfectly good faith, and stood erect before him for three full minutes, while, with a critical eye, he surveyed me from head to foot.
"I should say," he continued very deliberately, while I resumed my seat, "I should say that there was not the difference of an eighteenth of an inch between you."
"Really?" I exclaimed. "Why, isn't that odd! It's very nice, isn't it, for us to be so near alike?"
"I did not say you were near alike."
"Oh, but in size I mean. I know we don't look alike. Josephine used to be such a thin, dark, old-looking little girl, that I cannot imagine her tall and grown-up."