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 d not smile archly at me, nor shake her ringlets. In those days it was the fashion for young ladies to embroider slippers for such men in holy orders as best pleased their fancy. I received hundreds— thousands—of such slippers. But never a pair from Laura Frith."

"She did not love you?" asked Zuleika, who had seated herself on the floor at her grandfather's feet.

I concluded that she did not. It interested me very greatly. It fired me."

"Was she incapable of love?"

"No, it was notorious in her circle that she had loved often, but loved in vain."

"Why did she marry you?"

"I think she was fatigued by my importunities. She was not very strong. But it may be that she married me out of pique. She never told me. I did not inquire."

"Yet you were very happy with her?"

"While she lived, I was ideally happy."

The young woman stretched out a hand, and laid it on the clasped hands of the old man. He sat gazing into the past. She was silent for a while; and in her eyes, still fixed intently on his face, there were tears.

"Grand-papa dear"—but there were tears in her voice, too.

"My child, you don't understand. If I had needed pity—"