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Rh friends of yours that would n't let you want for nothin', if they knew you was back."

She saw the piece of roll stop midway between Viola's mouth and the plate, and her eyes fix themselves on the lid of the tea-pot in an arrested stare.

"Who do you mean?" said the girl, the even modulations of her voice not hiding its undertone of apprehension.

"Who do you suppose?" retorted Mrs. Cassidy, teasingly.

"I can't imagine," replied Viola. "I have n't the slightest idea to whom you 're referring."

"Oh, yes, you have, now," said Mrs. Cassidy, wagging her head knowingly, and flushing over her broad, buxom face with the pleasure of her secret. "Try and guess."

"Who do you mean, Mrs. Cassidy?" said Viola. Her pretension of indifference had suddenly disappeared. She tried to make her voice commanding, but it was full of a frightened distress.

"Mr. John Gault," announced the other, her narrow eyes, alight with curiosity, fastened on her lodger's face. The change in its expression, quick, inexplicable in its sudden tightening of the muscles and veiling of the eyes, told the watcher, not what the romance was that she so keenly scented, but confirmed her suspicions that there was a romance of some sort or other.