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290 her spirited nonsense—and now it was he himself! But she must say something.

"Yes, she's pretty. Clever? Well, I never had the pleasure of her acquaintance." The tiny thrust had relieved her a little. "And where do they go for their honeymoon, I wonder?"

It was said: "they," "their honeymoon." Had her voice really sounded so thin and cold? She had felt just like it, "thin and cold," a meagre, desolate sort of creature. "Meagre!" how descriptive! Her lips curled into a small morbid smile. She remembered the odd sensation.

Well, that was over; the telegram-scene was two days ago now, and she was going down to lunch in that odd, dreamy sort of way, as if she was walking on air—everything was so natural, yet so unreal! "The post just in? What letters?" she said, carelessly, passing through the hall.

"One from Luttrell."

"Why, Effie, Luttrell doesn't seem absorbed in his bride," her eldest brother said, reading his own letters. "Strikes me he'd rather"

She could have struck him—but this must be answered in its own vein. Would it never end? "Bored on the honeymoon, I suppose; they say every one is."

"He wouldn't be, though of course he'd pretend he was" her father laughed, opening the envelope. "Dear, dear! what a scrawl! I can't read it Effie, you read it out."

"No, indeed. I can't bear reading things aloud."

"Well, I can't. Take it, and read it to yourself, then?"

"You'd better both read it."

"Over his shoulder," one of the brothers said, mockingly.

Well, if it had to be done,

She stood and read it over her father's shoulder.

It