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 "And you hope for aid from me?"

"If you can bestow it," she replied, still in the same tone of mild submission.

"And how should I possess that power?" continued the Dwarf, with a bitter sneer; "Is mine the form of a redresser of wrongs? Is this the castle in which one powerful enough to be sued to by a fair suppliant is likely to hold his residence? I but mocked thee, girl, when I said I would relieve thee."

"Then, must I depart, and face my fate as I best may?"

"No!" said the Dwarf, rising and interposing between her and the door, and motioning to her sternly to resume her seat "No! you leave me not in this way; we must have farther conference. Why should one being desire aid of another? Why should not each be sufficient to itself? Look round you—I, the most despised and most decrepid on Nature's common, have required sympathy and help from no one. These stones are of my own piling; these