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Rh taneous; it seemed a kind of reflex action, a survival of some former state of mind or heart; for he did his favors in a dream, nor heard any thanks: yet the elixir was working in his veins.

"He is dreadfully in the way," grumbled Edith; "he is more ever-present than my ardent Russian."

"So long as he insists on coming, let us make him supply the paternal element," suggested Rhoda. "It may be a degrading confession, but we could afford to part with several women here if we could only secure a really fatherly man. The Solitary cannot indulge in any day-dreams or trances, if we accept him as the patriarch of the institution."

Whereupon they boldly asked him, on his subsequent visits, to go upon errands, and open barrels of apples, and order intoxicated gentlemen off the steps, and mend locks and window-fastenings, and sharpen lead-pencils, and put on coal, and tell the lady in the rear that her parrot interfered with their morning prayers by shrieking the hymns in impossible keys. He accepted these tasks without protest, and performed them conscientiously, save in the parrot dif-