Frances made no reply. She wondered what she would have said had she been told to write to an unknown mother. Ought she to do so now? The idea was a very strange one to her mind, and yet what could be more natural? It was with a sense of precipitate avoidance of a subject which must be contemplated fully at an after-period, that she said hurriedly, “I have never written letters. It did not come into my head.” “Ah!” said Constance, looking at her with a sort of impartial scrutiny. Then she added, with a sequence of thoughts which it was not difficult to follow, “Don’t you think it is very odd that you and I should be the same age?” Frances felt herself grow red, and the water came to her eyes. She looked wistfully at the other, who was so much more advanced than she felt herself to be. “I suppose--we ought to have been like each other,” she said. “We are not, however, a bit. You are like mamma. I don’t know whether you are like her in mind--but on the outside. And I am like _him_. It is very funny. It shows that one has these peculiarities from one’s birth; it couldn’t be habit or association, as people say, for I have never been with him--neither have you with mamma. I suppose he is very independent-minded, and does what he likes without thinking? So do I. And you consider what other people will say, and how it will look, and a thousand things.” It did not seem to Frances that this was the case; but she was not at all in the habit of studying herself, and made no protest. Did she consider very much what other people would say? Perhaps it was true. She had been obliged, she reflected, to consider what Mariuccia would say; so that probably Constance was right. “It was Markham that discovered you, after all, as I told you. He is invaluable; he never forgets; and if you want to find anything out, he will take any amount of trouble. I may as well tell you why I left home. If we are going to live together as sisters, we ought to make confidants of each other; and if you have to go, you can take my part. Well, then! You must know there is a man in it. They say you should always ask, ‘Who is She?’ when there is a row between men; and I am sure it is just as natural to ask, ‘Who is He?’ when a girl gets into a scrape.”