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sake, for your own sake, Nita, don't let it go any further--_don't_ fall in love--here--whatever you do." The younger sister stood at the dressing table at the moment, her face averted. The Mary Powell was just rounding the Point, and the mellow, melodious notes of her bell were still echoing through the Highlands. Nita was gazing out on the gorgeous effect of sunset light and shadow on the eastern cliffs and crags across the Hudson, a flush as vivid mantling her cheeks, her lip quivering. She was making valiant efforts to control herself before replying. "I'm _not_ in love with him," she finally said. "Perhaps not--yet. Surely I hope not, but it looked awfully like it was coming--and Nita, you simply mustn't. You've got to marry money if I have to stand guard over you and see you do it--and you know you can this minute--if you'll only listen." The younger girl wheeled sharply, her eyes flashing. "Peggy, you promised me I shouldn't hear that hateful thing again--at least not until we left here--and you've broken your word--twice. You----" "It's because I must. I can't see you drifting--the way I did when, with your youth and--advantages you can pick and choose. Colonel Frost has mines and money all over the West, and he was your shadow at the seashore, and all broken up--he told me--so when we came here. Paddy Latrobe is a beautiful boy without a penny--" "His uncle--" began Nita feebly. "His uncle had a sister to support besides Paddy's mother. His pay as brigadier in the regular service is only fifty-five hundred. He _can't_ have saved much of anything in the past, and he may last a dozen years yet--or more. Even if he does leave everything then to Latrobe, what'll you do meantime? Don't be a fool, Nita, because I was. I _had_ to be. It was that or nothing, and father was getting tired. _You_ heard how he talked." The younger sister was still at the dressing-table diligently brushing her shining, curly tresses. She had regained her composure and was taking occasional furtive peeps at Mrs. Frank, now seated at the foot of the bed, busy with a buttonhook and the adjustment of a pair of very dainty boots of white kid, whose buttons gleamed like pearls. The mates to them, half a size smaller, peeped from the tray of Nita's new trunk. There came a footstep and a rap at the door. "See what it is, Nita, there's a love--I don't want to hop." It was a card--a new arrival at the hotel. "Gentleman said he
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