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Rh communions. But it was soon over, and she floated back on a wave that showed her to be, since she had let herself go, by this time quite in the swing and describing a considerable curve. "Dear Mr. Prodmore, why are you so imprudent as to make your daughter afraid of you? You should have taught her to confide in you. She has clearly shown me," she almost soothingly pursued, "that she can confide."

Mr. Prodmore, however, suddenly starting, looked far from soothed. "She confides in you?"

"You may take it from me!" Mrs. Gracedew laughed. "Let me suggest that, as fortune has thrown us together a minute, you follow her good example." She put out a reassuring hand—she could perfectly show him the way. "Tell me, for instance, the ground of your objection to poor Mr. Pegg. I mean Mr. Pegg of Bellborough, Mr. Hall Pegg, the godson of your daughter's grandmother and the associate of his father in their flourishing house; to whom (as he is to it and to her) Miss Prodmore's devotedly attached."

Mr. Prodmore had in the course of this speech availed himself of the support of the nearest chair, where, in spite of his subsidence, he