It suited Nina to be thus
addressed, and she went readily to Richard, who pressed her soft,
warm hands, and then telling her playfully that he wished to know
how she looked, passed his own hand slowly over her face and hair,
caressing the latter and twining one of the curls around his
fingers; then, winding his arm about her slender waist, he asked
how old she was.
"FIFTEEN YEARS AND A HALF," was her prompt reply.'
Richard never thought of doubting her word. She was very slight
indeed. "A little morsel," he called her, and as neither Arthur
nor Edith corrected the mistake, he was suffered to think of Nina
Bernard as one, who, were she rational, would be a mere school-
girl yet.
She puzzled him greatly, and more than once he started at some
peculiar intonation of her voice.
"Little Snowdrop," he said, at last, "it seems to me I have known
you all my life. Look at me, and say if we have met before?"
Edith was too intent upon Nina's answer to notice Arthur, and she
failed to see the spasm of pain and fear which passed over his
face, leaving it paler than its wont.
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