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260 guard upon his tongue, but neither from mistrust nor dread of the girl's scorn. He judged her more justly now. The devotion to his sister, which had prompted Elizabeth to accompany Hatty on this journey, had touched her brother deeply. There must, after all, be something noble in the nature capable of making such sacrifices, with absolutely no return. For he recognized fully all she was giving up to come to Mentone. And with his truer appreciation of the girl's character, his fear of seeming to take advantage of his position, as Hatty's brother, to advance in an intimacy which might be distasteful to her, somewhat diminished. There were times when he forgot himself—when he became absorbed in the discussion of subjects started by Elizabeth, and when his eloquence had a persuasive charm which she had never before felt, or even suspected. He had, indeed, like so many cultivated Americans, a rare gift of language, united, in his case, with that yet rarer gift of a fervid imagination. Elizabeth had, from the first, been conscious of the man's power, and had struggled against it, with only a superficial success. Though she might contradict him point-blank, and declare to herself, as to others, that she would never bow down to his autocratic judgments, far down in her heart there was a conviction of the real force of a character, which it irritated her to think she could not fathom. Until lately he had never allowed her to see below the surface. But the thin coating of ice which covered the fluent depths of love and sympathy in his nature had melted in the warmth generated by Elizabeth's constant presence. Up to this time he had seen her mostly in the company of others—others whom