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New doubts now destroying his recent suspicions, Sir Jaspar held back, positively refusing to clear up what had dropt from him, and laughingly saying, "Far be it from me to put any such notions into your head! I believe it amply stored! All my desire is to get some out of it. If, therefore, you can tell me, or, rather, will tell me, who or what this young creature is, you will do a kind office to my imagination, for which I shall be really thankful. Who is she, then? And what is she?"
"Dl take me if I either know or care!" cried Sir Lyell, "further than that she is a beauty of the first water; and that I should have adored her, exclusively, three months ago, if I had not believed her a thing of alabaster. But if you think her———"
"Not I! not I!—I know nothing of her!" interrupted Sir Jaspar: "she is a rose planted in the snow, for aught I can tell! The more I see, the less I understand; the more I surmize, the fur-
