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 ear, if not to the intelligence. It was amazing to see how the three spinsters flattered their darling at every turn. Miss Cordelia led the chorus of praise, and her sisters, to speak musically, took up the theme, and answer, and counter-theme of the fugue, successively, in many keys. There was nothing that Mr. Brinsley did not know and could not do, according to the three Miss Miners, or if there were anything, it could not be worth knowing or doing.

"You'll flatter Mr. Brinsley to death," laughed Fanny, "though I must say that he bears it well."

A faint shade of colour rose in Miss Cordelia's pale cheeks, indicative of indignation.

"Fanny!" she cried reprovingly. "How rude you are! I'm sure I wasn't saying anything at all flattering."

"I only wish people would say such things to me, then," retorted the young girl.

"We're all quite ready to, I'm sure, Miss Trehearne," said Brinsley, smiling in a way that seemed to make his heavy dark mustache retreat outward, up his cheeks, like the whiskers of a cat when it grins.