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               Pretty Matty and Eliza.
beside him, though he did better presently.
There was, however, a general air of mixed
recognition and indifference with which the girls
regarded him � as if, too, his little buffooneries 
had become stale.    He ventured on few of them
tonight; was not at all prominent.         Mat work-
ed and chatted, loosed the pretty girdle from her
dainty waist, measuring and pronouncing it twenty
two inches long � (one too many), half promised to
give it to me when disused, wanted to know
why I asked for it.      I told her as a souvenir
against the time when she wouldn�t be friendly
with me, and got a big �Oh!� from beneath her
curls in response.         Jack appeared and anon
his mother and Ann.        Eliza and Matty sang
presently, at the request of Polhemus and Jack;
the latter enjoying his sisters performance with a
honest pleasure delightful to witness.        As Eliza
sat and Matty stood at the piano, and I 
listened to their dear, familiar voices, and fami-
liar songs, something of the old happiness, with
the undercurrent of pain � as productive of yearn-
ing desire for a home of my own and love and
domesticity and what not � stole over me.     I
thought, too, the scene had a kind of pathos
of its own, � these girls singing and waiting �