Great aunts, anyhow.

Those girls were girls all right, weren't they ?" "Yes--" Jeff agreed, still slowly.

"But they weren't afraid--they flew up that tree and hid, like schoolboys caught out of bounds--not like shy girls." "And they ran like marathon winners--you'll admit that, Terry," he added.
Terry was moody as the days passed.

He seemed to mind our confinement more than Jeff or I did; and he harped on Alima, and how near he'd come to catching her.

"If I had--" he would say, rather savagely, "we'd have had a hostage and could have made terms." But Jeff was getting on excellent terms with his tutor, and even his guards, and so was I.It interested me profoundly to note and study the subtle difference between these women and other women, and try to account for them.