ago, before I wanted my etchings, and he may be a man half an hour hence, when I don’t want them any longer. At present he is simply a portfolio stand. Why object, Gilmore, to a portfolio stand?”

“I DO object. For the third time, Mr. Fairlie, I beg that we may be alone.”

My tone and manner left him no alternative but to comply with my request. He looked at the servant, and pointed peevishly to a chair at his side.

“Put down the etchings and go away,” he said. “Don’t upset me by losing my place.


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that I do for Mrs. Fairlie’s sake?”

The old grateful sense of her benefactress’s kindness was evidently the ruling idea still in the poor creature’s mind—the narrow mind which had but too plainly opened to no other lasting impression since that first impression of her younger and happier days. I saw


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