possibly have such a good time in such a way? I never did anything
the least bit like it."

"Never coasted?"

"Never."

"Never threw snowballs?"

"Not that I can remember."

"Nor roasted chestnuts?"

"I never tasted one before--except perhaps in the stuffing of a fowl."

"Poor child! But at least you've sat by the fire with other girls and
men and told stories, little Jean?"

The guest considered. "Of course--at house parties. Yet I can't seem to
recall any such scene as the one we just left, down by your fire. I
certainly never sat on the floor with my arm on my father's knee, with
a group of people around, while somebody told stories--sure not such
stories as you told. Oh, you're the cleverest girl I ever knew, to tell
such things in such a way! It was perfectly splendid! How those two men
did enjoy it! I don't know when I've heard men laugh in just that way."

"Just what way? Please tell me how they laughed differently from other
men. To be sure, Jimps just lets go when he's amused and raises the
rafters with his howls of glee; but so do other young men of his age.
And certainly Mr. Jefferson laughed decorously enough."

"Yes, but it was so whole-souled with both of them; and yet there wasn't
a thing in your stories but--oh, I can't tell you just what I mean, if
you don't know. But somehow it all struck me so differently from the way
any girl-and-man evening ever struck me before. There--there seems a
different air to breathe here--if that expresses it--from any I've ever
been in."

The two regarded each other, Jeannette from between half-closed, deeply
fringed eyelids as she lay back upon her pillows, one arm, half veiled
with the finest of linen and lace, outstretched upon the treasured
old-time counterpane, the other beneath her neck; Georgiana sitting up
straight, with two long, dark braids hanging over her shoulders, her
dusky eyes wide open, her cheeks still bright with colour balanced by
the scarlet hue of the loose garment she had put on.

"I've no doubt there is," agreed Georgiana thoughtfully. "Still, though
you live a very different life from any I've ever known, I didn't
suppose your education in the matter of roast chestnuts--and the things
that go with them--had been quite so badly neglected. To think of never
having had them except so disguised by the manipulations of a French
_chef_ that you couldn't recognize them! And to have gone to balls and
horse shows and polo games--and never to