"How old are you?" asked Helen.
"Sechs yahre," was the shy answer.
"Such a big girl for six!"
"So grosse! So grosse!"
The little thing measured her height by touching her forehead.
"Shump down," admonished the mother stolidly, while Helen bent over the
child, wasting upon her the most wonderful smile of the everlasting years.
"It was long ago, wasn't it," Nelly asked, when the child had slid from
her lap, "that Uncle promised to take you into his office?"
"Yes," I said. "When Father died, the Judge told me that when I had
practised three years--long enough to admit me to the New York bar--he'd
have a place for me. It was because the three years were nearly up, you
know, that I dared last June to ask you--"
"You'd dare anything," she interrupted hastily. "Remember how, when I was
a Freshman, you raced a theologue down the church aisle one Sunday night
after service, and slammed the door from the outside? 'Miss Winship,' you
said--I had sat near the door and was already in the entry--'may I see you
home?'--"
"The theologue and the congregation didn't get out till you said yes, I
remember! They howled and hammered at the door in most unchristian rage?"
"I _had_ to say yes; why, I had to walk with you even when we
quarrelled; it would have made talk for either of us to be seen alone.
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