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Rh "I may—I need hardly ask you to forget this?" said Jamie timidly, and making hastily for the door.

"Of course; and she shall stay in her old home where she was bred from a child, and, d—n 'em, my grandchildren shall go to see her there"— But the door had closed.

"James Bowdoin, if my son, with his d—d snicker, were one half so good a gentleman as that old clerk, I'd trust him with—with an earl's daughter," said the old gentleman inconsequently, and violently rubbing a tingling nose.

"I think you're right, governor," said James Bowdoin. "Did you notice how spruced up and young the poor fellow was? I wish to goodness I hadn't laughed, though. He might have married the girl. Why not? How old is he?"

"Why not? Ask her. He may be forty, more or less."

"What a strange thing to have come into the old fellow's life! And we thought it would give him something to care for! I never fancied he loved her that way."

"I don't believe now he loves her so much