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 passes over his head and does grievous harm to his mother and the invalid he was aiding her to support. Of course you are in a position to do as you please, and I in that of a meddler in venturing to interfere: but not only is it merely a kind of weakness to exercise one’s strength upon an inferior, it is the noblest kind of strength to own up to that weakness and repair the evil before it is too late. I am giving you that chance, for Darius will wait for an answer.

“”

Galvin had brought in the note, and now stood waiting with folded hands.

“Did Darius bring this? “ I asked.

I was not so much disconcerted by the words of Galvin’s reply, as by the manner in which she kept her upper lip perfectly rigid, for all the world as if it had been starched and ironed. The Sunday-school superintendent of my early childhood had a similar trick of intimating disapproval, and as I looked away from Galvin and down at the note again, it