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  I confess in that moment, as I envisaged the recalcitrant Dolly locked in her room and fed upon bread and water, that I wished Mr. Marmaduke Hogg had remained in Washington, which is the scene of so many battles that one more or less would not be obvious on the horizon. On the contrary, his first words were a surprise.

“Miss Clifford,” he said, “no one knows what Dolly and I owe to you!”

“But what have I done?” I inquired laughingly.

“Oh, a thousand things! Taken my part gently and kindly with Mrs. Valentine; and above all, allowed Dolly to come on this journey with you, when she was so utterly confused by her mother’s objections to our marriage that she did not know which way to turn.—It’s rather a big job for a girl to decide whether she’ll break her mother’s heart, or her lover’s!”

“Mrs. Valentine has no heart, save in the physiological sense,” I interrupted.

“Well, I have cut the Gordian knot,”