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 liking to gather news, especially concerning young people, and she was confident by the tone and manner in which her friend spoke, that something had happened which would be exceedingly interesting to know. No persuasion, however, could extort anything more, and she was obliged to content herself with the suspicion that a misunderstanding had occurred between them. "A most unaccountable thing though," she kept soliloquizing, and what was more unaccountable still, became so engrossed by it as to forget the farther prosecution of her mission for that night. The bell rung nine before she was aware, and never allowing herself to be absent from her family later than that hour unless some uncommon occasion demanded it, she hurried away.

It was quite a relief to Miss Blanche, who was already beginning to regret the betrayal of her own feelings in that unguarded remark. She also, in common with Rosalind, was lost in reverie at the time Mrs. Frizzlewit made her appearance.

Mr. Livingston had deeply wounded her feelings by passing her unrecognized on the morning of his unfortunate adventure at Orange Grove. Pre-occupied as his mind then was, the air might have been full of Grace Blanches and he would not have seen them. Only one image was present to his mind. No matter if it was unseemly, it was capable of transformation, and in that light was constantly reappearing.

For all this however, the shock to his sensitive nature was greater than he was willing to acknowledge, which rebounded in another shock to Miss