rtly for leisure to fight her temper, said she would go herself, and
went. But when she returned, she gave the bag to Ruth at the door, and
went away without seeing Juliet again. She was getting tired of her
selfishness, she said to herself. Dorothy was not herself yet perfect in
love--which beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things,
endureth all things.

Faber too had been up all night--by the bedside of the little Amanda.
She scarcely needed such close attendance, for she slept soundly, and
was hardly at all feverish. Four or five times in the course of the
night, he turned down the bed-clothes to examine her body, as if he
feared some injury not hitherto apparent. Of such there was no sign.

In his youth he had occupied himself much with comparative anatomy and
physiology. His predilection for these studies had greatly sharpened his
observation, and he noted many things that escaped the eyes of better
than ordinary observers. Amongst other kinds of things to which he kept
his eyes open, he was very quick at noting instances of the strange
persistency with which Nature perpetuates minute peculiarities, carrying
them on from generation to generation. Occupied with Amanda, a certain
imperfection in one of the curves of the outer ear attracted his
attention. It is as rare to see a perfect ear as to see a perfect form,
and the varieties of unfinished curves are many; but this imperfection
was very peculiar. At the same time it was so slight, that not even the
eye of a lover, none save that of a man of science, alive to minutest
indications, would probably have seen it. The sight of it startled Faber
not a little; it was the second instance of the peculiarity that had
come to his knowledge. It gave him a new idea to go upon, and when the
child suddenly opened her eyes, he saw another face looking at him out
of hers. The idea then haunted him; and whether it was that it
assimilated facts to itself, or that the signs were present, further
search afforded what was to him confirmation of the initiatory
suspicion.

Notwithstanding the state of feebleness in which he found Mr. Drake the
next morning, he pressed him with question upon question, amounting to a
thorough cross-examination concerning Amanda's history, undeterred by
the fact that, whether itself merely bored, or its nature annoyed him,
his patient plainly disrelished his catechising. It was a subject which,
as his love to the child increased, had g