Page:Under Two Skies.djvu/51

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happiness she for once shook off the haunting vision of poor Clinton, who at that moment was walking home to his Melbourne lodgings from Sunday supper at the parsonage, hugging to his heart the velvet embroidered case that had 'inspired' his evening sermon.

As for Jim, he carolled all the way back to the hut—still in Italian.


V

On Mr. Parker's high office-stool at the desk in the store sat Miss Jenny—deep in the composition of a letter. This letter was a long business, and, what was worse, it cost the writer tribulation over every word; when from time to time she looked up, her eyes were swimming with tears. Her letter, in fact, was full of sorrow and remorse: its frankness did the writer some credit—it was the letter of a weak nature rising almost to strength in the honest admission of its weakness: it was a letter to Clinton Browne.

It was strange that she should have the