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 but Janet and Rose thought Lady Chester was so good-natured, they might venture to ask for her directions on that point, so that consideration was deferred; and Mrs. Hopkinson narrated her morning experiences, which filled her daughters with indignation, and they issued peremptory orders to their mother, never to go to Marble Hall again.

"Poor Willis!" added Mrs. Hopkinson, "I suppose he is an unlucky man, as he says. He is certainly not fortunate in these friends, the niece was the best of the set, though I did not understand what she was talking about, and she is pretty too."

"Does Charles think so?" said Janet.

"Charles? I never thought to ask him. Why bless me, girls!" Mrs. Hopkinson added, after a pause, "you don't mean to say that poor Willis will ever look up again after his sad loss—that he will ever think of a second wife. To be sure, I have no right to speak; I had been a widow only two years when I married your father; but then I was young and gay, and between ourselves, children, my