She had come from a town, Miss Jennie Orton, aged seventeen, and she was spending the winter with the family of her uncle.

The eldest, aged seventeen, is among our inquirers.

I had known her from the time we were wee little tots, and we fell in love with each other, although she was fifteen and I but a little past seventeen, but her father was rich; he despised low people, and that girl and I agreed that I was to leave home, go into the world and earn a fortune, and go back and claim her.

"Oh! oh! 'sweet seventeen, and never been kissed'; but I suppose you cannot truthfully say that, Miss Melvyn?"