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After a time, Helen half opened her blue eyes, and saw a pair of dark ones look kindly into them. She had been dreaming of such, so she closed her own again, and for a short time again slumbered; but, as Mrs. Palmer had predicted, at her usual time she really awoke, roused herself to life, and was aware that it had many cares for her, though she knew not exactly their nature. Impressions of a painful character, blended with sweet and dreamy sensations, every instant vanishing into thin air, never to be recalled, floated around her. But again the eyes were on her. She put up her hand to shade her own, when a gentle voice said, "You are, I trust, much better now?" "Where am I?—what is the matter?" cried Helen, starting to her feet, and looking wildly, as if unconscious why she had a cause for shame and sorrow, yet certain one existed, and her eloquent blood rushed to the pale cheeks it had so long