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238 set eyes on; not happy, indeed! I had half a mind to ride up to her carriage ai;d advance a claim to her gratitude."

"Gratitude! Oh, for your part in that miserable affair of which you told me?"

"Not a miserable affair for her, but certainly /never got any good from it—trouble for nothing! Basta I No use looking back!"

"No use; but who can help it!" said Arabella Crane, sighing heavily; then, as if eager to change the subject, she added, abruptly, "Mr. Rugge has been here twice this morning, highly excited—the child will not act. He says you are bound to make her do so!"

"Nonsense. That is his look-out. / see after children, indeed!"

(with a visible effort). "Listen to me, Jasper Losely, I have no reason to love that child, as j'ou may suppose. But now that you so desert her, I think I feel compassion for her; and when, this morning, I raised my hand to strike her for her stubborn spirit, and saw her eyes unflinching, and her pale, pale, but fearless face, my arm fell to my side powerless. She will not take to this life without the old man. She will waste away and die."

Losely. "How you bother me! Are you serious? What am I to do?"

Mrs. Crane. "You have won money you say; revoke the contract; pay Rugge back his ^loo. He is disappointed in his bargain; he will take the money."

Losely. "I dare say he will, indeed. No—I have won today, it is true, but I may lose to-morrow, and, besides, I am in want of so many things; where one gets a little money, one has an immediate necessity for more—ha! ha! Still I would not have the child die; and she may grow up to be of use. I tell you what I will do; if, when the races are over, I find I have gained enough to afford it, I will see about buying her off. But;^ioo is too much! Rugge ought to take half the money, or a quarter; because, if she don't act, I suppose she does eat."

Odious as the man's words were, he said them with a laugh that seemed to render them less revolting—the laugh of a very handsome mouth, showing teeth still brilliantly white. More comely than usual that day, for he was in great good-humor, it was difficult to conceive that a man with so healthful and fair an exterior was really quite rotten at heart.

"Your own young laugh!" said Arabella Crane, almost ten-