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160 flushed, and her black eyes of a strange watery lustre and fire. They were not at all those of the Sicilian girl at Palermo, yet somehow he vaguely identified them, and suffered the same dumb confusion before their light. At last, to his great relief, the woman spoke.

"You 're Marden Sebright, ain't you? I 've seen you on the w'arf,—and heard a lot about you besides," she added, with a slyness that seemed unnecessary.

"I hope," said Marden, "I hope"—but as he did not know exactly what, he stopped. He felt strangely drawn toward this woman, whoever she might be. He had gone about so much alone, so ghostlike; and she was so very much alive and full of high spirits.

"Oh, it was all nice," she cut in, "awful nice things, all of it, what I heard."

"I'm glad of that," replied Marden, and balked, and felt himself a fool.

"I been waitin' a long time here to have a talk with you," she said plaintively. "You 're different from these people. They don't understand. And I hurt my finger foolin' with a rock while I was waitin'. See."—