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460 She soon found that his manner was more than ordinarily kind to her; and there was moreover something about him which seemed to make him sparkle with contentment, but he said no word about Frank, nor did he make any allusion to the business which had taken him up to town.

'Have you got through all your work?' she said to him once.

'Yes, yes; I think all.'

'And thoroughly?'

'Yes; thoroughly, I think. But I am very tired, and so are you too, darling, with waiting for me.'

'Oh, no, I am not,' said she, as she went on continually filling his cup; 'but I am so happy to have you home again. You have been away so much lately.'

'Ah, yes; well, I suppose I shall not go away any more now. It will be somebody else's turn now.'

'Uncle, I think you're going to take to writing mysterious romances, like Mrs. Radcliffe's.'

'Yes; and I'll begin to-morrow, certainly, with— But, Mary, I will not say another word to-night. Give me a kiss, dearest, and I'll go.'

Mary did kiss him, and he did go. But as she was still lingering in the room, now putting away a book, or a reel of thread, and then sitting down to think what the morrow would bring forth, the doctor again came into the room in his dressing-gown, and with his slippers on.

'What, not gone yet?' said he.

'No, not yet; I'm going now.'

'You and I, Mary, have always affected a good deal of indifference as to money, and all that sort of thing.'

'I won't acknowledge that it has been affectation at all,' she answered.

'Perhaps not; but we have often expressed it, have we not?'

'I suppose, uncle, you think that we are like the fox that lost his tail, or rather some unfortunate fox that might be born without one.'

'I wonder how we should either of us bear it if we found ourselves suddenly rich. It would be a great temptation—a sore temptation. I fear, Mary, that when poor people talk disdainfully of money, they often are like your fox, born without a tail. If nature suddenly should give that beast a tail, would he not be prouder of it than all the other foxes in the wood?'

'Well, I suppose he would. That's the very meaning of the story. But how moral you've become all of a sudden at twelve o'clock at night! Instead of being Mrs. Radcliffe, I shall think you're Mr. Æsop.'