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 on her. She noticed his manner and said:

"Why I thought you would be glad to see me."

"So I am," he answered, seeking to disperse the gathering gloom from his countenance; "but the last few days have been very trying, and perhaps their shadow is still on me."

"I would like to have you tell me about them, unless it would make you too sorry," said Nattie.

"It is a hard tale," he answered; "but it is better to know the truth than to have the mind left a prey to suspense and fearful imaginations."

Then Augustus Reid rehearsed briefly the events of the past week, touching as lightly as possible those incidents calculated to awaken grief and horror in the heart of his listener.

"Well," said Nattie, drawing a deep sigh when he had finished, "so they are all dead and gone,—those poor creatures to whom I was so hard and unkind. I shall never forgive myself because I did not let the poor old man have his mat by day, and his blanket to wrap around his cold, aching