of it. But young things like you, Ernestine, have you learned any of it yet?”

“Tell me,” she asked abruptly, almost tragically, “about this wild young romance, about this young thing when he was young, fifteen years ago.”

“Fifteen?” Dick replied promptly. “Eighteen. They were married three years before she died. In fact — figure it out for yourself — they were actually married, by a Church of England dominie, and living in wedlock, about the same moment that you were squalling your first post-birth squalls in this world.”

“Yes, yes — go on,” she urged nervously. “What was she like?”

“She was a resplendent, golden-brown,