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THE GOLDEN AGE I scouted the notion; 'Why, she's quite old,' I said. (She must have seen some five-and-twenty summers.)

'Of course she is,' replied Edward scornfully. 'It's not her, it's her money he's after, you bet!'

'Didn't know she had any money,' I observed timidly.

'Sure to have,' said my brother with confidence. 'Heaps and heaps.'

Silence ensued, both our minds being busy with the new situation thus presented: mine, in wonderment at this flaw that so often declared itself in enviable natures of fullest endowment,—in a grown-up man and a good cricketer, for instance, even as this curate; Edward's (apparently) in the consideration of how such a state of things, supposing it existed, could be best turned to his own advantage.

'Bobby Ferris told me,' began Edward in due course, 'that there was a fellow spooning his sister once——'

'What's spooning?' I asked meekly.

'O I dunno,' said Edward indifferently. 94