_Lucy._ It seems to agree with you, at all events. You look as bright and rosy as though you were the New Year itself come to visit me. _Agnes._ [_Laughs merrily._] So I ought to. I ran nearly all the way, except when I slid, to the great horror of an old gentleman who was busily engaged lecturing some little boys on the enormity of their sins in making a beautifully long slide in the middle of the pavement. _Lucy._ And what brought you out so early? _Agnes._ To see you, of course. Besides, the morning is so lovely it seemed a sin to remain indoors. I do hope the frost continues all the holidays. _Lucy._ It is all very well for you, but it must be terribly trying for many people--the poor, for instance. _Agnes._ Yes. [_A pause._] Auntie, you don't know anything, do you, about how--how poor people live? _Lucy._ Not so much as I ought to. _Agnes._ I didn't mean _very_ poor people, not working people. I meant a person poor like--like I am poor. _Lucy._ [_Smiling._] Don't you know how you live yourself? _Agnes._ Of course I do, but--I was thinking of--of a friend of mine, a governess like myself, who has just got engaged; and I--I was wondering on how much, or, rather, how little, they could live. But you don't know of course. You are rich, and---- _Lucy._ But I wasn't always rich. Thirty years ago when I was your age---- _Agnes._ When you were my age! I like that! why you are not fifty. _Lucy._ Little flatterer. Fifty-two last birthday. _Agnes._ Fifty-two! Well, you don't look it, at all events. _Lucy._ Gross flatterer. When I was your age I was poor and a governess as you are. _Agnes._ But I thought that your Aunt Emily left you all her money. _Lucy._ So she did, or nearly all; but that was afterwards. It isn't quite thirty years yet since she came back from India, a widow, just after she had lost her husband and only child. I was very ill at the time--I almost died; and she, good woman as she was, came and nursed me. _Agnes._ Of course, I know. I have heard father talk about it. And then she was taken ill, wasn't she? _Lucy._ Yes, almost before I was well. It was very unfair that she should leave everything to me; your father was her nephew, just as I was her niece, but he wouldn't hear of my sharing it with---- _Agnes._ I should think not indeed! I should be very sorry to think that my father would ever allow such a thing. Although, at the same time, it is all very well for you to imagine that you don't share it, but you _do_. Who pays for Lillie's and May's and George's schooling? Who sent Alfred to Cambridge, and Frank to---- _Lucy._ Don't, please. What a huge family you are, to be sure. _Agnes._ And last, but not least, who gave me a chance of going to Girton? Oh, we are not supposed to know anything about it, I know, but you see we do. You thought you had arranged it all so beautifully, and kept everyone of us entirely in the dark, but you haven't one little bit. _Lucy._ Nonsense, Agnes, you----