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 CHAPTER XV.

MILLMOUNT.

spite of all her husband's encouragement and her own natural fortitude Jessie Copeland's heart beat faster and more anxiously than was agreeable when on her arrival in England they took the train that was to land them at the nearest station to Millmount. They had telegraphed their safe arrival and their purposed journey before they started, so that old Mrs. Copeland was in a fever of impatience. To think of her eldest boy, her handsome George, returning to be a constant inmate in the house after twelve years' absence, was a delightful and bewildering anticipation; but would there not be a little risk in including the Australian wife?

At first the joy of seeing George swallowed up all her curiosity and anxiety with regard to the unknown daughter-in-law, and she held him in her arms for some minutes, without taking her