"When?"
"Oh, years ago. When you were in your cradle."
"Where?"
"On the St. Lawrence. Several summers. He was my boy-knight, and chaperon, and protector. Such a dear, chivalrous boy!"
"Was he in love with you?" demanded Miss Elliot with lively interest.
"Of course he wasn't. He was a boy of fifteen, and I a mature young woman of twenty-one."
"He was in love with you," accused the girl, noting a brightness in her friend's color.
"There was a sort of knightly devotion," admitted the other demurely. "There always is, isn't there, in a boy of that age, for a woman years older?"
"And you didn't know him at first?"
"It's ten years since I've set eyes on him. He doesn't even know that I am the Mrs. Festus Willard who is giving this party."