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296 "I always do, always, that is to say, when I have nothing on my mind."

"Well, I did not sleep at all."

"Why did you not?”

"I began to think, and then it was all over."

"About bills?"

"No," he says, smiling. "What made you think of bills, of all things?"

"Because they keep" I am about to add, "mother awake,' when I stop short. "Is it not very odd," I continue, as we walk along between the cabbages, "how the merest trifles that we hardly notice by day assume gigantic proportions at night? Do you know that all the silly things I have said and done, and all the times I have made a fool of myself, rise up before me when I lie awake, and seem to pelt me? and when daylight comes they appear quite small again, and I recover my self-respect. Do you ever feel like that?"

"Often enough," he says, rather sadly. "Only the blows my sins deal me are somewhat heavier than those your little white misfortunes give you. I often think, though, that there is no exaggeration about those night thoughts; that things do but assume their real significance then; truer counsel comes to us in those silent hours than in the broad garish day, with its thousand sights and sounds, and words to come as a screen between us and our souls."

"Let us take comfort in that our consciences are active and healthy!" I say, laughing; "it is when people do not feel their shortcomings at all that they may be considered to be in a bad way, is it not? I suppose all eminently wicked folk have no conscience at all?"

"Nell," he says, looking down at me, "what a merry, heart