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"Wo track of their children"

He looked rather feverish again, so she said, "I think I’d better go back to the Bible, though it’s likely too late for your soul"

"Do you think I ht redeem my soul if I found a husband for you?"

"You would do better to see to the welfare of your poor children," she said And then, hearing the fascinated horror in her own voice: "How many are there?"

"Not as many as would fill a choir," he said, "nor yet as few as to sing a solo Can you sing, by the way?"

"No"

"I know a very nice lad in need of a wife but he loves song"

"I’s of that nature," Charlotte said

"What about horses?"

"They exist"

"Not an enthusiast But you like to talk We know that And you have good ideas for Beau politician? Plenty of those about"

"They want soe dowry," she said dispassionately

"You could have that"

"As it happens, I don’t"

"I could give it to you" He opened his eyes very wide and looked at her They were a deep black

"Why would you do that?"

"I like you And dying men have their foibles, their foolishnesses…"

"I thank you for it" But she added, a little sadly: "It would be distasteful, don’t you think, to buy a husband, even with a duke’s largesse?"

"Oh, he wouldn’t know that A better dress and you must put a bit of color on your cheeks now and then And your hair!" He peered at her "Worse than I remembered"

She didn’t tell hiers that , afraid he was dead, or nearly so, and then rushed out of the house with May calling behind her "I will still be just me"

"Not once I’ve transforht Too hard, too grasping You’re correct: there’s a chance theof money and political influence They all have those distasteful propensities I think you need an intellectual"

"A what?"

"A philosopher Reeve was a thinker I re about this and that He was never boring"

"No," Charlotte agreed

"Is it almost Christmas?"

"Tomorrow is St Nicholas’s day"

"God" He whispered it "It seeht that duel and it’s--it can’t have been months"

"It has been"

"I really won’t survive then, will I?"