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 stooped to lift her playmate, paused, and uttered a terrified cry.

"Uncle! Uncle Joe, come here quick—quick!"

Smiling at his own acquiescence, the gentleman obeyed her demand, and stooped over her as she also bent above the object on the rug. All that was left of poor Rudanthy—who had travelled three thousand miles to be melted into a shapeless mass before the first hearth-fire which received her.

Josephine did not cry now. This was a trouble too deep for tears.

"What ails her, Uncle Joe? I never, never saw her look like that. Her nose and her lips and her checks are all flattened out, and her eyes—her eyes are just round glass balls. Her lovely curls"—The little hands flew to the top of the speaker's own head, but found no change there. Yet she looked up rather anxiously into the face above her. "Do you s'pose I'd have got to look that dreadful way if I hadn't waked up when I did, Uncle Joe?"

"No, Josephine. No, indeed. Your un