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232 little ones. Amy started to full consciousness when she heard this—the kindness, the generosity, the forbearance, that every one at Branxholm had shown her, pressed upon her grateful heart. Did any one really love and respect her father's memory or her father's as Allan Lindsay did? Could she be as much loved, as useful, and as independently situated anywhere as at Branxholm? Mrs. Lindsay's motherly care might not be so demonstrative, but it was as real as Mrs. Troubridge's could be.

"I cannot leave my good friends; indeed, I have no wish to do so," said Amy.

"But you have been so differently situated, and you are completely buried there," said Mrs. Troubridge, forgetting that her home was more remote from civilization and more dull in many ways than the stirring household of the Lindsays. "My children would be so fond of you, and you would feel more independent."

"I scarcely think so," said Amy. "You cannot tell how good they all are to me; and as for salary, Mr. Lindsay insists on my taking one from him."

"Indeed!" said Mrs. Troubridge, who had not thought that the close-fisted Scotchman would have been so liberal. "That, perhaps, alters the case."