own letters would, I am sure, have been a mine of gold to any one, and Miss Lamb clearly found them so. As he proceeded to toss one nugget after another before her, the reserve with which she had entered upon the correspondence—the correspondence with John Brunt, you understand—gradually wore off, and she began sending him letters which were quite up to those she received. I say the reserve wore off, by which I mean that she began writing more fully upon this or that topic of general interest which John happened to broach in his letters. Yet when her correspondent happened upon any subject which she did not choose to follow up she could be as evasive as the Sphinx. Her letters to John were singularly impersonal. It was an interesting study to note the difference between those and the ones addressed to the fictitious Miss Lamb, to whom she occasionally wrote to report progress. The letters to John were longer and more varied, yet after reading a short note to "Miss
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