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258 no commercial value. As for the others—well, candidly, I'm afraid it would scarcely pay you to put them in an agent's hands. They're not the character of work a city dealer could handle—could handle with any degree of profit to you and your aunts, I mean."

She studied his face with her questioning, grave eyes.

"I was afraid so," she finally said, with a new listlessness in her voice.

"I know it hurts," he said, moving toward her, "and I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?" she asked with no reciprocal movement.

"That instead of bringing you happiness at the very first I've only been able to bring you the other thing." "I wasn't thinking about myself," she told him. "I was thinking more about them."

He knew that she meant the two strange old women with whom she lived, with whom she had lived; and in the strong side light, as she stood there still vital and ardent and unawakened, he tried to picture