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RV 148 A faint shadow brushed Pauline's cloudless horizon; but she resolutely turned her eyes from it. "Tell me what you think is wrong."

"Why, that she's bored stiff—says she's going to chuck the whole thing. She says the life she's leading prevents her expressing her personality."

"Good gracious—she dares?" Pauline sat bolt upright, the torn garment of her serenity fluttering away like a wisp of vapour. Was there never to be any peace for her, she wondered? She had a movement of passionate rebellion—then a terror lest it should imperil Alvah Loft's mental surgery. After a physical operation the patient's repose was always carefully guarded—but no one thought of sparing her, though she had just been subjected to so radical an extirpation. She looked almost irritably at Nona.

"Don't you think you sometimes imagine things, my pet? Of course, the more we yield to suggestions of pain and distress the more—"

"Yes; I know. But this isn't a suggestion, it's a fact. Lita says she's got to express her personality, or she'll do something dreadful. And if she does it will break Jim's heart."

Pauline leaned back, vaguely fortified by so definite a menace. It was laughable to think of Lita Cliffe's threatening to do something dreadful to a Wyant!

"Don't you think she's just over-excited, perhaps? She leads such a crazy sort of life—all you children