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 waste of these cheeks. Heigho! she used to be plump: what she has done with it all, I can't, for the life of me, divine."

"If wishing to get well will help me, I shall not be long sick. This morning, I had no reason and no strength to wish it."

Fanny here tapped at the door, and said that supper was ready.

"Uncle, if you please, you may send me a little bit of supper—anything you like, from your own plate. That is wiser than going into hysterics,—is it not?"

"It is spoken like a sage, Cary: see if I don't cater for you judiciously. When women are sensible—and, above all, intelligible—I can get on with them. It is only the vague, superfine sensations, and extremely wire-drawn notions, that put me about. Let a woman ask me to give her an edible or a wearable—be the same a roc's egg or the breastplate of Aaron, a share of St. John's locusts and honey or the leathern girdle about his loins—I can, at least, understand the demand: but when they pine for they know not what—sympathy—sentiment—some of these indefinite abstractions—I can't do it: I don't know it; I haven't got it. Madam, accept my arm."

Mrs. Pryor signified that she should stay with her daughter that evening. Helstone, accordingly, left them together. He soon returned, bringing a plate in his own consecrated hand.

"This is chicken," he said; "but we'll have