"The best way with them is to let them say what they like, and take no notice." We went upstairs to bed, as the only place where we could enjoy one another's society undisturbed.
As we were undressing.

Jack took from his pocket a photograph, which he showed to me.
"Fred," said he, "would you like to see a portrait of Mary ?" "Your sister ?" said I, taking the picture.

"Yes." It was a pretty little girl of about twelve or thirteen, with dark eyes and hair like Jack's; but, unlike him, with a merry, sunny face, which even under the eye of a photographer could not be made to look solemn.
"How jolly!" was my exclamation.
Jack looked as delighted with this unsentimental comment as if I had broken out into all sorts of poetic raptures, and replied, in his peculiar, solemn way, "Yes, she is jolly." "Is she your only sister ?" I asked, giving him back the portrait.
"Yes," said he.
"Was she very ill when you got down ?" "Yes; we hardly thought she was going to live," he replied.
"I heard how you were both getting on now and then from Mrs Shield.
She seems a very kind person." "She's our old nurse, you know," Jack said, "and like a mother to Mary and me." He had never spoken like this about home before.

Whenever we had approached the topic he had nervously changed the conversation.

Now, however, he seemed almost glad to talk to some one, and there was quite a tremble in his voice as he spoke of his sister and Mrs Shield.
"Then your own mother's not alive ?" I asked.