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'He had eaten a few bananas, but as they 're not recognized as food here, they only increased his humiliation. You know, banana-trees are just grown to shade the coffee-plants, which are delicate."

Mr. Winterbottom signified a proper interest in that phase of coffee culture, and Alicia took advantage of a level stretch of road to put her horse to the gallop. When he regained her side, half a mile farther on, he was agitated.

"Alicia!"

"Oh, I deserved it, Edward, and I told him so. I did n't care how badly he thought of me if I could only give him back his faith in love. It 's such a wonderful thing to get that back! So I sang pretty small about myself; and when I revealed my exact status as an ex-wife in process of being courted by her divorced husband, his eyes nearly dropped out of his head. You see, they don't play "Tag! You 're it!' with marriage down here. That boy actually began to hand me out a line of missionary talk. He thinks I ought to remarry you, Ned."

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'He must have splendid instincts, after all. So of course you did n't kiss him?"

"Wait a minute. After mentioning that I was eleven years older than he, and that my hair had been an elegant mousedrab before I started touching it up-"

"Not at all. I liked its color-a very pretty shade of-"

"Alicia, would you mind enlightening me on one point?" he asked. “Did you- "After that, I told him that he could give him back his self-respect?" thank his stars for the education I had "Perhaps I'd better tell you all that given him, in view of the fact that he 's happened, Edward." going to be sent to college in the U. S. A.,

"By Jove! I wish you would!" he and I gave him a few first-rate pointers cried earnestly.

"Well, Popo was n't a bit surprised to see me. In fact, he was expecting me.” "Indeed? Had n't lost his assurance, then."

"He had simply worked out my probable actions, just as I had worked out his. Of course he looked like a wild thing, hair on end, eyes like a panther, regular young bandit. Well, I rag-timed up in my best tra-la-la style, but he halted me with a splendid gesture, and started a speech. You know what a command of language foreigners have, even the babies. He never fumbled for a word, and all his nouns had verbs waiting, and the climaxes just rolled over one another like waves. It was beautiful."

"But what was it about?"

"Me, of course: my iniquity, the treacherous falseness residing as ashes in the Dead Sea fruit of my beauty, with a lurid picture of the ruin I had made of his belief in woman, his capacity for happiness, and all that. And he wound up with a burst of denunciation in which he called me by a name which ought not to be applied to any lady in any language."

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on the college widow breed. And finally, Ned, I put it to him that I was anxious to do the square thing, and if he considered himself entitled to a few kisses while you were waiting, he could help himself."

"And he?" Mr. Winterbottom inquired with a pinched look.

"He looked so cute that I could have hugged him. But he nobly declined."

"That young fellow," said Mr. Winterbottom, taking off his hat and wiping his brow, "is worthy of being an American."

"Why, that was his Indian revenge, the little monkey! But he was tempted, Ned."

"Of course he was. If you'd only tempt me! O Alicia, you 're a saint!"

"That's what Popo called me yesterday, and it was neither more nor less true than what he called me to-day. I suppose we 're all mixtures of one kind and another. And I 've discovered, Ned, that it's the healthiest kind of fun to be perfectly frank with-with an old pal. Let's try it that way next time, shall we, dear?" She offered her lips for the second time that day, and

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