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194 "Now, Lucy, do tell me what!"

"You know them as well as I; and, knowing them, Dr. John, it really amazes me that you should not repose the frankest confidence in her fidelity. To doubt, under the circumstances, is almost to insult".

"Now you are beginning to speak fast and to breathe short; but speak a little faster and breathe a little shorter, till you have given an explanation—a full explanation: I must have it".

"You shall, Dr. John. In some cases, you are a lavish, generous man: you are a worshipper ever ready with the votive offering should Père Silas ever convert you, you will give him abundance of alms for his poor, you will supply his altar with tapers, and the shrine of your favorite saint you will do your best to enrich: Ginevra, Dr. John"

"Hush!" said he, "don't go on".

"Hush I will not: and go on I will: Ginevra has had her hands filled from your hands more times than I can count. You have sought for her the costliest flowers; you have busied your brain in devising gifts, the most delicate: such, one would have thought, as only a woman could have imagined; and in addition, Miss Fanshawe owns a set of ornaments, to purchase which your generosity must have verged on extravagance".

The modesty Ginevra herself had never evinced in this matter, now flushed all over the face of her admirer.

"Nonsense!" he said, destructively snipping a skein of silk with my scissors. "I offered them to please myself: I felt she did me a favor in accepting them".

"She did more than a favor, Dr. John: she pledged her very honor that she would make you some return; and if she cannot pay you in affection, she ought to hand out a business-like equivalent, in the shape of some rouleaux of gold pieces".

"But you don't understand her; she is far too disinterested to care for my gifts, and too simple-minded to know their value".

I laughed out: I had heard her adjudge to every jewel its price; and well I knew money-embarrassment, money-schemes, money's worth, and endeavors to realize supplies, had, young as she was, furnished the most frequent, and the favorite stimulus of her thoughts for years.