"Has anything happened ?" Lucile went over to the mirror and picked up, from among the trinkets beneath, a tiny open-work miniature of Frona.

"This is you?
How old were you ?" "Sixteen." "A sylph, but a cold northern one." "The blood warms late with us," Frona reproved; "but is--" "None the less warm for that," Lucile laughed.

"And how old are you now ?" "Twenty." "Twenty," Lucile repeated, slowly.

"Twenty," and resumed her seat.
"You are twenty.

And I am twenty-four." "So little difference as that!" "But our blood warms early." Lucile voiced her reproach across the unfathomable gulf which four years could not plumb.
Frona could hardly hide her vexation.