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 my dear Miss Gould, perceive in these little setbacks a warning against further attempts? Do you still attend the League? It is not possible!”

“Possible?” echoed his visitor; for owing to certain recent and untoward circumstances, Miss Gould was half reclining in her lodger’s great Indian chair, sipping a glass of his ’49 port. “Indeed I do! They had every one of them to be reformed all over again! It was most disgraceful!”

Her lodger checked a rising smile, and leaned solicitously toward her, regarding her firm, fine-featured face with flattering attention.

“Are you growing stronger? Can I bring you anything?” he inquired.

Miss Gould’s color rose, half with anger at her weakness of body, half with a vexed consciousness of his amusement.

“Thank you, no,” she returned coldly, “I am ashamed to have been so weak-minded. I must go now and tell Henry