have built a snow fort! Dear,
dear, what we have to teach you! Life hasn't been really fair to you,
has it, my dear?"

This was sheer audacity, from a poor girl to a rich one, but it was
charming audacity none the less and by no means wholly ironic. To
Jeannette, studying her cousin with eyes which were envious of the
physical superiority for lack of which no training in the social arts or
mere ability to purchase the aid of dressmaker and milliner could
possibly atone, conscious that Georgiana possessed a mind far keener and
better trained than her own, the question called for a serious answer.
She half sat up and pushed her pillow into a soft mountain behind her as
she spoke:

"No, it hasn't! I thought so before I came here and now I'm sure of it.
I feel a weak and helpless creature beside you--helpless in every way. I
can't do anything you can. If my father should lose his money and I
should be thrown upon my own resources, I shouldn't be able to make so
much as a--snowball for myself!"

Both laughed in spite of Jeannette's earnestness, for the words brought
back vivid memories of the wild sport of the afternoon. Then Georgiana's
ready brain leaped to the inevitable corollary:

"Ah, but there'd be sure to be a man ready to dash into your fort and
make your snowballs for you!"

"I'm not so sure."

"I am."

"Of course the men I know don't seem to mind whether a girl is helpless
or not, if she can look and act the way they want her to. But--I'm
discovering that there are other kinds of men, and somehow I like this
new kind. And I imagine this kind wouldn't care for helpless girls. You
made snowballs for your man to throw, and they were good hard ones, as
my chin can still testify."

"You can learn to make hard snowballs," said Georgiana, smiling.

Jeannette held up one beautifully modelled but undeniably slender arm
and clasped it with her hand. "Soft as----" She paused for a simile.

"Sponge cake," supplied Georgiana, coming over to feel critically of the
extended arm. "It _is_ pretty spongy. It needs exercise with a punchball
or"--she flashed a mischievous glance at the languid form beside
her--"a batch of bread dough."

"Bread dough! Would that help it?"

"Rather! So would sweeping, and scrubbing, and moving furniture about.
But you're born to a life of ease, my dear, so those things are out of
the question for you. But fencing lessons would be good for you--and
fashionable, too, which would double th