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238 "Out of the mud, if you prefer. You must pick it up, do you see? My plan is, in short," Mr. Prodmore pursued, "that when we've brushed it off and rubbed it down a bit, blown away the dust and touched up the rust, my daughter shall gracefully bear it."

She could only oppose, now, a stiff, thick transparency that yielded a view of the course in her own veins, after all, however, mingled with a feebler fluid, of the passionate blood of the Prodmores. "And pray is it also Captain Yule's plan?"

Her father's face warned her off the ground of irony, but he replied without violence. "His plans have not yet quite matured. But nothing is more natural," he added with an ominous smile, "than that they shall do so on the sunny south wall of Miss Prodmore's best manner."

Miss Prodmore's spirit was visibly rising, and a note that might have meant warning for warning sounded in the laugh produced by this sally. "You speak of them, papa, as if they were sour little plums! You exaggerate, I think, the warmth of Miss Prodmore's nature. It has always been thought remarkably cold."

"Then you'll be so good, my dear, as to confound—it mightn't be amiss even a little to