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THE SEMI-DETACHED HOUSE.
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room, "don't you think I am behaving very well, and that I am improving in habits of self-command? You have not seen any signs of fretting, and yet I am very unhappy. Arthur did not write kindly, did he?"

"He wrote under a misapprehension, caused by his father's letter; and twenty-four hours later when he would have received the news of Aileen's engagement, he would certainly be much more unhappy than you are, my love, that he had been unjust to you. But I will own that you have borne this injustice wonderfully, and that my Blanche has improved in the art of self-control. And I have been thinking, my child, that you may soon see good come out evil. Arthur will be so afraid of your fretting, and so ashamed of his pettishness, that I should not be at all surprised if he set off instantly to come home."

"Oh, Aunt Sarah! do you really think so? but then that wicked Mr. Armistead—who is clearly a very unprincipled man, and does not care about his wife—will never let Arthur off from that journey to Prague, now