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 astonishing novelty, that this announcement was received much as the intimation of a great misfortune would have been from anybody else. The Hopkinsons all looked at him with the greatest commiseration, and with some curiosity, just as people stare when a fresh beast arrives at the Zoological Gardens. A "Willis-making-the-best-of-it," was quite a new specimen, a rare and interesting animal; and when it further appeared, that his black coat had disappeared, and that he was drest like any other commonplace gentleman, in an equally common-place dark coat, the pity of the family knew no bounds. If he had avowed, that he had lost all his wealth, and was going to hang himself, the girls would have laughed, and said, "how like Charles;" but when he seemed to think that only part of his fortune was at stake, and that, except for Charlie's sake, he did not mean to be miserable about it, they were all in the greatest grief—Captain Hopkinson proferring assistance, Mrs. Hopkinson buried in her pocket handkerchief, and the girls,