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 eyes and features—her heart turned with almost a fond impulse, looked up to her as an instructor, and clung to her as a friend. With a somewhat more marked accent of interest than she often permitted herself to use, she said, as she bent towards her youthful companion, and put aside from her forehead a pale brown curl which had strayed from the confining comb:—

"I do hope this sweet air blowing from the hill will do you good, my dear Caroline: I wish I could see something more of colour in these cheeks—but perhaps you were never florid?"

"I had red cheeks once," returned Miss Helstone, smiling. "I remember a year—two years ago, when I used to look in the glass, I saw a different face there to what I see now—rounder and rosier. But when we are young," added the girl of eighteen, "our minds are careless and our lives easy."

"Do you"—continued Mrs. Pryor, mastering by an effort that tyrant timidity which made it difficult for her, even under present circumstances, to attempt the scrutiny of another's heart,—"Do you, at your age, fret yourself with cares for the future? Believe me, you had better not: let the morrow take thought for the things of itself."

"True, dear madam: it is not over the future I pine. The evil of the day is sometimes oppressive—too oppressive, and I long to escape it."