Now I wonder if you'll tell me something more ?" Ransford turned back with a sudden apprehension.
"Well ?" he asked brusquely.

"What ?" "When are you going to tell me all about--Dick and myself ?" she asked.
"You promised that you would, you know, some day.

And--a whole year's gone by since then.

And--Dick's seventeen! He won't be satisfied always--just to know no more than that our father and mother died when we were very little, and that you've been guardian--and all that you have been!--to us.

Will he, now ?" Ransford laid down his letters again, and thrusting his hands in his pockets, squared his shoulders against the mantelpiece.