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 "I was gone much longer than I expected when I left. You knew where I went?" remarked Ernest.

"No, I went over to your room that morning just in season to get a glimpse of you in the old stage coach, and I made up my mind that as you had gone off without ceremony, you might return without ceremony, and I would let you enjoy it."

"Walter is such an easy genius he never borrows any trouble for aught that happens," observed his mother, "he would make light of it, and say, 'Oh, he knows his own business, he will come back when he gets ready, I know he will,' which nobody doubted."

The curious expression of Walter's face when his mother said this, convinced Ernest that he knew the whole, in spite of his assumed indifference as he said abstractly, "And so you did, didn't you? but it's been lonesome enough here without you."

All this conversation was torture to Rosalind. She would have given worlds had they been at her command to have blotted out that little page of her history. As Ernest held her hand he imagined he could feel the blood come and go; and to relieve her embarrassment, proposed going to an exhibition that evening, which in reality had no interest for either of them. As she rose without any hesitation to get ready. Walter glanced curiously from her to her mother, very much to the amusement of Ernest. She had not spoken since he entered the parlor, and her evident confusion betrayed a personal interest in the matter which excited her mother's curiosity not a little.

"That's a mighty funny affair," said Walter, after