"Of course I've been away a lot--school and trips and all that." "And I'm still a small-towner," said Wilbur, though delightedly.

It was worth being a small-towner to have a brother so splendid.
"We must see a lot of each other from now on," insisted Merle.

"We must get together this way every time I come back." "We must," said Wilbur.

"I hope we do, anyway," he added, reflecting that this would be one of those things too good to come true.
"What I don't understand," went on Merle, "you haven't had the advantages I have, not gone off to school or met lots of people, as I'm always doing, not seen the world, you know, but you seem so much older than I am.

I guess you seem at least ten years older." "Well, I don't know." Wilbur pondered this.