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 and acute enough to guess what the pause in his sentence meant; and when Miss Monteneros was announced soon after, the something almost amounting to animation in Willis's manner confirmed their suspicions. Rachel had called on them frequently lately; sometimes with gifts for poor people, a list of whom she had obtained from Janet—sometimes in a moody humour, which she assured them could only be dispelled by talking it off to them—sometimes full of dry fun, and seeming to take life as a farce; but whatever was the vein of the day, little Charlie was the "master of the situation."

The child had taken a fancy to her the first time he saw her, and Rachel had had so little experience of affection, that his artless fondness touched her to the heart; she loved him with a passionate love, she made herself his willing slave, told him odd amusing stories, and then again talked to him in sober earnest, as if he and she understood the world and each other better than any other two people on earth. There is nothing so attractive to