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 exactly what she means:—'Can a child of the Star take advantage of one who relies on her to explain the customs of a world unknown to him? I blush to think that my child can abuse the tenderness of one who is too eager to indulge her fancies.'

"You see she is quite right. You do trust me so absolutely, you are so strangely over-kind to me, it is shameful I should vex you by fretting because you are forced to do what you might well have done at your own pleasure."

"My own, I was more than vexed; chiefly perhaps for your sake, but not by you. Where any other woman would have stung the sore by sending fresh sparks along the wire, you thought only to spare me the pain of seeing you pained. But what do the last words mean? No"—for I saw the colour deepen on her half-averted face—"better leave unread what we know to be written in error."

But the less agreeable a supposed duty, the more resolute was Eveena to fulfil it.

"They were meant to recall a saying familiar in every school and household," she said:—

"This"—tightening and relaxing the clasp of her zone—"is the symbol of stricter or more indulgent household rule." Then bending so as to avert her face, she unclasped her embroidered sandal and gave it into my hand;—"and this is what, I suppose, you would call its sanction."

"There is more to be said for the sandal than I sup-