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Rh think me so very little? At home, at Silverbridge, you know, they always thought me so leggy."

"You will shoot up some day," he says, passing his hand over his moustache, "perhaps be a giantess, who knows? And do you really live at Silverbridge?"

"Yes. I suppose you have heard a good deal about it from Mr. Frere?"

"I was born there," he says.

"But you have not been there lately?"

"I lived there until fifteen years ago. Have you never been to The Towers?"

"Yes, I have been there," I say slowly, remembering certain stolen afternoons spent under the shadow of the oaks in the grand old park; "and that is yours?"

"Yes, it is mine. My father died in Rome last year."

"I don't think that Jack and I ever knew who it was that owned The Towers, not that we should ever have been any the wiser if we had heard the name."

"No. I went away before you were born."

"And yet you cannot be very old," I say, lifting my eyes to the dark, proud, somewhat worn face, that is as far removed from mere effeminate beauty as it is from ordinary everyday locks.

"Old enough!" he says, with something very like a sigh; "I am thirty years old!"

"More than double my age," I say soberly. "Oh! it seems a great deal; but then you must have seen so much, been all about the world; it must be nice to have had experience."

"I would give it all," he says, looking into my eager face, "to have your youth and freshness and belief."

"Belief!" I repeat, "what is that?"

"I can hardly tell you," be says, "for you would not understand. Do you not look forward to having your life all your own way.