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 like a soldier, and when I got through she said, 'Thank you, Doctor,' with the sweetest little quaver of a smile. You don't often see a girl of seven or eight with the pluck of a soldier and the manners of alady. A thing like that shows brains as well as nerves, and I would give a good deal to know whether she wrote Spoils."

I did not volunteer any information on the subject. I was occupied with a simple sum in addition, by means of which I discovered that Miss Lamb could not then be more than twenty-five years of age.

John was greatly taken with the tale of the broken arm, which I made haste to pass over to him. But the fact of the young lady's youth did not shake his conviction that she wrote the poems.

"A woman like that," he said, "might have found time for plenty of experiences before she was twenty-five years old. She would probably make no more outcry over a broken heart than over a broken arm, and I can imagine