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 tumbled hair from her eyes. There were new lines of suffering in her childish face, a naive grace, a piteous appeal, that had even softened the buckrammed, tight-buttoned heart of her aunt, and drawn from her this last offer of help.

"I give you my solemn word of honor," she said, "I'll obey you in every particular. I've been a fool, and I know it. I'm in an awful hole, and if you'll help me out, I'll—I'll—there isn't anything I won't do."

"And if I lay down a plan of action, you'll live up to it, will you?"

"I will, oh, I will!" Philippa wailed.

"It's understood, then, is it? Then let us go over the ground."

Mrs. Ford rose and made a slow tour of the room in silence; her gaze snapped from one object to another, as if this were, in fact, the ground she was going over. An amused gleam lit her cold eyes as she noted the familiar sham: the soulful "sanguines," the masterpieces of Burne-Jones, Rossetti, and Watts, that adorned the walls of the room, because its occupant felt she ought to admire them. The rows of books 288