“Six months ago Mr. Rand, my old employer and then partner, died, and for some good or favor he fancied I had done him, he left me £50,000, which, with what I already had, made me a rich man, and then I began to think of home and the little cousin who, I said, must be a dried-up old maid by this time.” At this I winced and tried to draw back from Tom, but he held me fast, while his rare smile broke all over his face as he went on: “I thought I’d like to know just how you did look, and so wrote for your photograph, which, when it came, astonished me, it was so young and pretty and girlish; not in the least old maidish, as I feared it might be——” “Tom, Tom—are you crazy?” I cried, wrenching my hands from his. “I’m not pretty; I’m not girlish; I’m not young; and I am an old maid of thirty-two.” “Yes, yes, very true. I know your age to a minute, for didn’t we use to compare notes on that point when you brought up your seniority of ten months as a reason why you should domineer over and give me fits. I knew you were thirty-two, but you’d pass for twenty-five. Why, I’m ten years older than you now, with my bushy head, and tawny face, and brawny chest. Look at the difference, will you?” And leading me to the mirror he showed me the picture it reflected—picture of a tall, broad-shouldered, brown-faced, brown-haired man, who might have been thirty-five, and by his side, not quite reaching his shoulder, the petite figure of a woman whose forehead and lips were very pale, whose cheeks were very red, whose eyes were bright with excitement, and whose wavy hair was not unbecoming even if it was all tumbled and tossed, and falling about her face and neck. That was Tom and I, and when, with his mischievous smile shining on me from the glass he asked: “Well Mousey, what do you think of us?” I answered with a dash of my old sauciness: “I think you look like a great shaggy bear, and I like a little cub.”