She is fifty now, and nearly all she gets she sends to Heidelberg to her poor sick sister.

I wonder how much good warm cloaks do cost ?" Lucy Tempest spoke the last sentence dreamily.

She was evidently debating the question in her own mind.

Her small white hands rested inertly upon her pink dress, her clear face with its delicate bloom was still, her eyes were bent on the fire.

But that Lionel's heart was elsewhere, it might have gone out, there and then, to that young girl and her attractive simplicity.
"What a pretty child you are!" involuntarily broke from him.
Up came those eyes to him, soft and luminous, their only expression being surprise, not a shade of vanity.
"I am not a child; why do you call me one?
But Mrs.Cust said you would all be taking me for a child, until you knew me." "How old are you ?" asked Lionel.
"I was eighteen last September." "Eighteen!" involuntarily repeated Lionel.
"Yes; eighteen.