and as broad as my office writing-desk. The miserable foreigner grinned in the most abject manner, and looked ready to drop with fatigue, while his master composedly turned over the etchings, and brought their hidden beauties to light with the help of a magnifying glass.

“You very best of good old friends,” said Mr. Fairlie, leaning hack lazily before he could look at me, “are you QUITE well? How nice of you to come here and see me in my solitude. Dear Gilmore!”

I had expected that the valet


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we first met.

“You are looking at me, and you are thinking of something,” she said, with her strange breathless rapidity of utterance. “What is it?”

“Nothing extraordinary,” I answered. “I was only wondering how you came here.”

“I came with a friend who is very good to me. I have only been here


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