"But you understand my sisters are splendid and no end nice to me."
"So were my brothers," said Willy loyally.
She looked at him with a quick sympathy. "I know," she murmured. "Mr. Rivers told me. And all in one year. It must have been dreadful."
"Yes, it was. But it was worse when my mother died."
"Oh, yes. I was sixteen when my mother died. And I miss her so now. Don't you?"
"Yes. I was fifteen."
They were both silent. The weight of their piteous memories was on both young hearts, and yet in each was a sense of companionship, of the sympathy of a common pain. The tears gathered slowly in the girl's eyes; she put her hand up her sleeve, but withdrew it empty, and the young man, taking out his own handkerchief, which had surely seen hard usage, looked disconsolately on it before tendering the freshest corner. "It's pretty mussy, but I lost the others," he apologized.
"And you have pockets, too! I lose handkerchiefs to an appalling extent."
"So do I." It was wonderful how many things they had in common—thoughts, opinions, most delightfully human of all, faults. He felt emboldened to say that it must be a great comfort to have a sister; he had always wanted one.
"They're a good deal of a nuisance, most boys think," said she, "but I don't know why. I know I shouldn't have been a nuisance to my brothers and I should rather like to have had one. We might have been pals."