"Indeed, awfully pretty. But what are you going to do with them? "
"Oh, I shall give them to little Amelia. Though, to be quite honest, I should like to keep them myself.… You think me rather childish? Well, it is just because they remind me of my childhood, though there is not much worth remembering in it. And yet I like to recall it. It is strange how it is; but time softens everything, even what lies but a short distance off seems glorified. Isn't it always a comfort that the hour will come when a halo will be shed over all memories and make them beautiful?"
"Yes," I replied, "you are right. And this present time, this very day, perhaps a time will come when one will find it almost painfully beautiful, and reproach oneself for not having appreciated it enough at the moment; still, as far as I am concerned, that would be unjust."
Minna bent her head lower, and added some fresh stones to the collection in her handkerchief.
"As a child I adored these clear stones, I had plenty of them, and imagined myself to be a Princess, and that they were my jewels. I said that I would give them to little Amelia, but it is quite likely she might be offended by such a present, and her father silly enough to give her real ones instead of them."
"It cannot be an easy task for you to be a governess to such spoilt children. I daresay you have had a more sensible bringing up."
"Honour to whom honour is due," she said a little bitterly, and shook the stray hairs away from her eyes. "Sense! There was not much of that."
"Was your home very simple?"
"Had it been simple only, I should not have minded,
