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Rh perhaps looked ever so little larger; his face was always thin, it was perhaps a shade thinner; he always stooped, he stooped perhaps a little more. But, even as one can look at a portrait and say so, though Charlie was changed so little, yet he was not like him with whom she had walked on the hot Sunday afternoon of July last. Then it was summer, now it was autumn; and, instead of the broad brightness of sun, a little bitter wind stirred among the trees. For the flame of life there was substituted the shadow of death, intangible, indescribable, untranslatable into definite thought, but unmistakable.

But her pause was only momentary; the quick, practical part of her nature leaped instinctively to the surface to do its duty. She was here, if possible, to help, and she came quickly forward to meet him.

she said,

She took both his hands in hers.

she said,

said he;

Sybil drew her cloak round her.

said she.

said he.

They talked till dinner on indifferent subjects; she sketched New York for him with a brilliant, if not a very flattering, touch; she did her best for the Revels, but suddenly in the middle broke down.