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Rh don't trouble, I can't stay more than a few minutes. I hope Miss Eden is well?"

"Oh, yes—she's all right. She lives in clover, as you might say, since her uncle on the mother's side left her that hundred a year. Made it all in fried fish, too. I should have thought it a risk myself, but you never know."

Mrs. Despard was struggling with a sensation as of sawdust in the throat—sawdust, and a great deal of it, and very dry.

"But I heard that Miss Eden was married—"

"Not she!" said Mrs. Eden, with the natural contempt of one who was.

"I understood that she had married a Mr. Cave."

"It's some other Eden, then. There isn't a Cave in the town, so far as I know, except Mr. Augustus; he's a solicitor and Commissioner for Oaths, a very good business, and of course he'd never look the same side of the road as she was, nor she couldn't expect it."

"But really," Mrs. Despard persisted, "I do think there must be some mistake. Because