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 highly gratifying to me. But you can put your mind quite at rest, for I am not going to hold you to your offer."

Dorothy looked surprised.

"What do you mean?" she said.

"Simply this," said Judge Tyler; "if your sister wanted you to have her child she would have gone to you directly and said so. But she came instead to me, Dorothy, and made it very evident that she did not want her child to be brought up in your house. I need not go into the reasons. You and she looked at life differently. I will not say that your way was wrong, but it was not hers. The other day, when I called on you, your children were studying their lessons; your eldest child is five years old. It was a bright, beautiful afternoon. Well, Harmony's children would have been playing in the yard. Don't make me put it stronger."

Dorothy was pained and hurt for a moment.

"How like Harmony to hate me!" she said; "but, of course, I have no rights in the matter, and I may as well say that