Shortly after my seventeenth birthday Mr Sanford and I had a serious difference of opinion which almost amounted to a quarrel. I do not say that the fault was entirely his. But that is not the point. The point is whether, every time you happen to be not quite exactly right, you are to be treated as if you were a mere worm, and have your age thrown in your face. It was not my fault that I was only seventeen. As Mr Pitt said--I remember reading about it at Mrs Sawyer's--being young is a crime one grows out of. Rome was not built in a day. You cannot do everything at once. It is quite certain that you cannot be ninety in five minutes. I was perfectly aware that Mr Sanford was twenty-five. It is not a time of life against which I have a word to say. I feel sure that it is a delightful age. But I cannot understand why persons who are twenty-five should consider themselves so immensely superior to persons who are only seventeen. Or, if they are superior, and are known to be, that is no reason why they should show it. On my birthday Mr Sanford gave me a box of gloves. Now I am five feet five and a half inches high. I know I am, because when Dick made me stand up against the wall with my hair down and a book on my head, he said he never should have thought it from the look of me. Which was not a nice thing to say. But then brothers have manners of their own. I want to know what size of hand a person who is nearly five feet six high ought to have. Because, directly I opened the box, I saw that they were lovely gloves, but that they were all six and a half. "Oh, what a pity!" I cried. "They'll be like boats on me! I take six and a quarter!" Of course, I am conscious that it was not precisely a civil remark to make; and, had I reflected, I might not have made it. But it was out before I even guessed it was coming. As it was out, it was. And, anyhow, it was simply the truth. At the time, Mr Sanford was as nice as possible. He expressed his regret for the mistake which had occurred, and volunteered to change them. He did change them. Four or five days afterwards he came with another box. It was the sixteenth of November, a Thursday. As it turned out to be a memorable day to me, I have the best of reasons for keeping the exact date in my mind. I shall never forget it--never--not if I live long enough to lose my memory. It was very cold. All the week it had been freezing. That is, off and on. Because I admit that it might occasionally have risen above freezing point. But it certainly had been freezing all the day before, and all that morning--hard. Ice was everywhere. I had made up my mind to try it, and had just finished cleaning my skates when Mr Sanford came in. "Why," he exclaimed, when he saw them, "what are you going to do with those?" "I'm going to skate with them. What is one generally supposed to do with skates?" "But, my dear Miss Boyes, it's impossible. After two or three days' more frost, perhaps, but at present the ice won't bear."