"You did not lose them all at once, as I did; but isn't it a little audacious to try to pass yourself off as a school-girl of seventeen ?" Mrs.Slater laughed.

"But I once was she, if I am not now," she said.
"You won't deny that." "I certainly shall deny it, with your permission," replied Ludington.

"I remember her very well, and she was no more an old woman like you than you are a young girl like her." Mrs.Slater laughed again.

"How sharp you are getting, my dear!" she said.

"Since you are so close after me, I shall have to admit that I have changed slightly in appearance in the forty odd years since we went to school at Hilton, and I'll admit that my heart is even less like a girl's than my face; but, though I have changed so much, I am still the same person, I suppose." "Which do you mean ?" inquired Miss Ludington.