Book: Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860




"But I didn't expect you before the sun."

"To pass the day, and find you absent and the breakfast-table not
cleared away."

"My dear Roger, we have not quite taken our habits yet. As soon as the
country-air shall have wakened and made over Helen and Mrs. Laudersdale,
you will find us ready for company at daybreak."

"What a passion for 'company'! I shall not be surprised some day to
receive cards for your death-bed."

"Friends and relatives invited to attend? No, Roger, you mustn't be
naughty. You shall receive cards for my dinner-party before we go,
if you won't come without; for we have innumerable friends in town,
already."

"Happy woman!"

"What's that? A newspaper? A newspaper! How McLean will chuckle!" And
she seized the sheet which Mrs. Laudersdale had abandoned in sweeping
from the room.

"Is there a Mr. Laudersdale? Where is he?" asked Mr. Raleigh, as he
leaned against the window.

"Who?" asked his cousin, deep in a paragraph.

"Mr. Laudersdale. Where is he?"

"Oh! between his four planks, I suppose," she replied, thinking of the
Soundboat's berth, which probably contained the gentleman designated.

"Between his four planks," repeated Mr. Raleigh, in a musing tone,
entirely misinterpreting her, and to this little accident owing nearly
thirteen years' unhappiness.

"She must have married early," he continued.

"Oh, fabulously early," replied Mrs. McLean, between the lines she read.
"She is Creole, I believe. She is perfect. The women are as infatuated
about her as the men. Here's Helen Heath been dawdling round the table
all the morning for the sake of chatting to her while she breakfasts. I
don't know why, I'm sure; the woman's charming, but she's too lazy even
to talk. McLean! Another flurry in France."

And after shaking hands with Mr. Raleigh, that worthy seized the
proffered paper and vanished behind it, leaving to his wife the
entertainment of her cousin, which duty she seemed by no means in haste
to assume, preferring to remain and vex her husband with a thousand
little teasing arts. Meanwhile Mr. Raleigh proceeded to take that office
upon himself, by crossing the hall, exploring the parlors, examining the
manuscript commonplace-books, and finally by sketching on a leaf of
his pocket-book Mrs. Laudersdale, at the other end of the piazza,
half-swinging in the vines through which broad sunbeams poured, while
Helen Heath was singing and several other ladies were busying themselves
with books and needle-work in her vicinity."

"Ah, Mr. Raleigh!" said Helen Heath, as he put up the pocket-book and
drew near,--"Mrs. Laudersdale and I have been wondering how you amuse
yourself up here; and I make my discovery. You study animated nature;
that is to say, you draw Mrs. Laudersdale and me."

"Mistaken, Miss Helen. I draw only Mrs. Laudersdale; and do you call
that animated nature?"

"I wish you would draw. Mrs. Laudersdale _out._"

At this point Mrs. Laudersdale _fell_ out; but, without otherwise
stirring from his position than by moving an apparently careless arm,
Mr. Raleigh caught and restored her to her balance, as lightly as if
he had brushed a floating gossamer from the air to his finger. For the
first time, perhaps, in her life, a carnation blossomed an instant in
her cheek, then all was as before,--only two of the party felt on that
instant that in some mysterious manner their relations with each other
were entirely changed.

"But what _is_ it that you do with yourself?" persisted Helen. "Tell us,
that we may do likewise."

"Will you come and see?" he asked,--his eyes, however, on Mrs.
Laudersdale.

"Will you come in away from the lake to the brooks, and hang among the
alders and angle, dreaming, all day long? Or will you rise at dead of
night and go out on the lake with me and watch field after field of
white lilies flash open as the sun touches them with his spear? Or will
you lie during still noons up among the farmers' fields where myriad
bandrol corn-poppies flaunt over your head, and stain your finger-tips
with the red berries that hang like globes of light in the
palace-gardens of mites and midges, soaking yourself in hot sunshine and
south-winds and heavy aromatic earth-scents?"

"Come!" said Mrs. Laudersdale, rising earnestly, like one in an eager
dream.

"It is plain that you are in training for a poet," said Helen Heath,
laughing, to Mr. Raleigh. "Well, when will you take us? Are the lilies
in bloom? Shall we go to-morrow morning?"

"I don't know that I shall take you at all, Miss Helen;--river-lilies
might suit you best; but these queens of the lakes, the great, calm
pond-lilies, creatures of quiet and white radiance,--I have seen only
one head that possessed enough of the genuine East-Indian repose to be
crowned with them."

"You like repose," said Mrs. Laudersdale. "But what is it?"

"Repose is strength,--life that develops from within, and feels itself
and has no need of effort. Repose is inherent security."

"Goodness!" exclaimed Helen. "Article first in a new
dictionary,--encyclopedia, I should say. You worship, but you don't
possess your god, for you look at this moment like a shaft in the bow;
and here comes an archer to give it flight."

"Where are you going, Kate?" said her cousin.

"To pick strawberries in the garden. Want to come?"

The three could do no better than accept her invitation. The good ladies
might stare as they could after Mrs. Laudersdale, and wonder what
sudden sprite had possessed her, since for neither man nor woman of the
numerous party had she hitherto condescended to lift an unwonted eyelid;
what they would have said to have seen her plunged in a strawberry-bed,
gathering handfuls and raining them drop by drop into Helen Heath's
mouth, to silence her while she herself might talk,--her own fingers
tipped with more sanguine shade than their native rose, her eyes full
of the noon sparkle, and her lips parted with laughter,--we cannot say.
Roger Raleigh forgot to move, to speak, to think, as he watched her. But
in the midst of this brilliant and novel gayety of hers, there was still
a dignity to make one feel that she had by no means abandoned her regal
purple, but merely adorned it with profuse golden flourishes.

At dinner that day, Helen begged to know if there were not a great many
routes in the vicinity practicable only on horseback, and thought she
had attained her end when Mr. Raleigh put his horses and his escort at
the service of herself and Mrs. Laudersdale during their stay.

"During our stay!" said Mrs. Laudersdale. "That reminds me that we are
to go away!"

"Pleasantly, certainly. When snows fall and storms pipe, the Bawn is an
icehouse," said he.

After noon, the remainder of the day was interspersed with light
thunder-showers, rendering tea on the grass again impossible; they
passed the steaming cups, therefore, as they sat on the piazza curtained
with dripping woodbine. The glitter of the drops in the sunset light, a
jewelled scintillation, was caught in Mrs. Laudersdale's eyes, and some
unconscious excitement fanned a faint color to and fro on her cheek.
At last the moon rose; the whole party, regardless of wet slippers,
sauntered with Mr. Raleigh to the shore, where the little Arrow hung
balancing on her restraining cord. Mrs. Laudersdale stepped in, Mr.
Raleigh followed, took up an oar, and pushed out, both standing, and
drifting slowly for a few rods' distance; then Mr. Raleigh made the
shore again, assisted her out, and shot impatiently away alone. The
waters shone like white fire in the wake he cut, great shadows fall
through them where island and wood intercepted the broad ascending
light, and Mrs. Laudersdale's gay laugh rung across them, as the space
grew,--a sweet, rich laugh, that all the spirits of the depths caught
and played with like a rare beam that transiently illumined their
shadowy, silent haunts.

The next day, and the next, and so for a fortnight, Mr. Roger Raleigh
presented himself with the breakfast-urn at the Bawn, tarried during
sunshine, slipped home by starlight across the lake. Every day Mrs.
Laudersdale was more brilliant, and flashed with a cheery merriment like
harmless summer-lightnings. One night, as he pushed away from the bank,
he said,--

"_Au revoir_ for five hours."

"For five hours?" said Mrs. Laudersdale.

"For five hours."

"At half-past three in the night?"

"In the morning."

"And what brings you here at dead of dark?"

"The lilies and the dawn."

"Indeed! And whom do you expect to find?"

"You and Miss Helen."

"Well, summer and freedom are here; I am ready for all fates, all deeds
of valor, vigils among the rest. We will await you at half-past three in
the morning. Helen, we must sleep at high-pressure, soundly, crowding
all we can on the square inch of time. _Au revoir_."

A shadow stood on the piazza, in the semi-darkness, at the appointed
hour; two other shadows flitted forward to meet it, and silently down
the bank, into the boat, and out upon the lonely glimmering reaches
of the water. Nobody spoke; the midnight capture of no fort was ever
effected with more phantom-like noiselessness than now went to surprise
the Vestals of the Lake; only as two hands touched for an instant, a
strange thrill, like fire, quivered through each and tore them apart
more swiftly than two winds might cross each other's course. Helen Heath
was drowsy and half-nodding in the bow, nodding with the more ease that
it was still so dark and that Mr. Raleigh's back was toward her. Mrs.
Laudersdale reclined in the stern. Mr. Raleigh once in a while sent them
far along with a strong stroke, then only an occasional plash broke the
charm of perfect stillness. Ever and anon they passed under the lee of
some island, and the heavy air grew full of idle night-sweetness; the
waning moon with all its sad and alien power hung low,--dun, malign, and
distant, a coppery blotch on the rich darkness of heaven. They floated
slowly, still; now and then she dipped a hand into the cool current; now
and then he drew in his oars, and, bending forward, dipped his hand with
hers. The stars retreated in a pallid veil that dimmed their beams,
faint lights streamed up the sky,--the dark yet clear and delicious.
They paused motionless in the shelter of a steep rock; over them a
wild vine hung and swayed its long wreaths in the water, a sweet-brier
starred with fragrant sleeping buds climbed and twisted, and tufts of
ribbon-grass fell forward and streamed in the indolent ripple;
beneath them the lake, lucid as some dark crystal, sheeted with olive
transparence a bottom of yellow sand; here a bream poised on slowly
waving fins, as if dreaming of motion, or a perch flashed its red
fin from one hollow to another. The shadow lifted a degree, the eye
penetrated to farther regions; a bird piped warily, then freely, a
second and a third answered, a fourth took up the tale, blue-jay and
thrush, catbird and bobolink; wings began to dart about them, the world
to rustle overhead, near and far the dark prime grew instinct with
sound, the shores and heavens blew out gales of melody, the air broke up
in music. He lifted his oars silently; she caught the sweet-brier, and,
lightly shaking it, a rain of dew-drops dashed with deepest perfume
sprinkled them; they moved on. A thin mist breathed from the lake,
steamed round the boat, and lay like a white coverlet upon the water; a
light wind sprang up and blew it in long rags and ribbons, lifted, and
torn, and streaming, out of sight. All the air was pearly, the sky
opaline, the water now crisply emblazoned with a dark and splendid
jewelry,--the paved-work of a sapphire; a rosy fleece sailed across
their heads, some furnace glowed in the east behind the trees, long
beams fell resplendently through and lay beside vast shadows, the giant
firs stood black and intense against a red and risen sun; they trailed
with one oar through a pad of buds all-unaware of change, stole from
the overhanging thickets through a high-walled pass, where, on the open
lake, the broad, silent, yellow light crept from bloom to bloom and
awoke them with a touch. How perfectly they put off sleep! with what a
queenly calm displayed their spotless snow, their priceless gold, and
shed abroad their matchless scent! He twined his finger round a slippery
serpent-stem, turned the crimson underside of the floating pavilion, and
brought up a waxen wonder from its throne to hang like a star in the
black braids on her temple. An hour's harvesting among the nymphs, in
this rich atmosphere of another world, and with a loaded boat they
turned to shore again.

"Smothered in sweets!" exclaimed Mr. Raleigh, as he sprang out, and woke
Helen Heath, where, slipped down upon the floor of the boat, her head
fallen on her arms, she had lain half-asleep. They were the first words
spoken during the morning, and in such situations silence is dangerous.

When the rest of the family descended to breakfast, they found the
pictures framed in wreaths of lilies, great floats of them in hall and
parlor, and the table laden with flat dishes where with coiled stems
they crowded, a white, magnificent throng. Mr. Raleigh still lingered,
and, while Mrs. Laudersdale and Helen renewed their toilets, had busied
himself in weaving a crown of these and another of poppy-leaves, hanging
the one on Mrs. Laudersdale's head, as she entered refreshed, snowy, and
fragrant herself, and the sleep-giving things on Helen's,--the latter
avenging herself by surveying her companion's adornment, and, as she
adjusted the bloom-gray leaves of her own, inquiring if olives grew
pickled.

Nothing could be more airy and blithe than were Mrs. Laudersdale's
spirits all that morning,--bubbles dancing on a brook, nor foam-sparkle
of rosy Champagne. She related their adventures with graphic swiftness,
and improvised dangers and escapes with such a reckless disregard of
truth that Mr. Raleigh was forced to come to the rescue with more
startling improbabilities than they would have encountered in the
Enchanted Forest.

The red dawn brought its rain, and before they rose from table the
sunshine withdrew and large drops began to patter in good earnest. Mr.
Raleigh, who had generally suffered others to entertain him, now, as
Mrs. McLean ushered the whole company into the sewing-room, seemed
spurred by gayety and brilliance, and to bring into employ all those
secrets through which he had ever annihilated time. For a while devoting
himself to the elder dames, he won the heart of one by a laborious
invention of a million varicolored angles to a square barley-corn of
worsted--work, involved Mrs. McLean's crocheting in an inextricable
labyrinth as he endeavored to afford her some requisite conchological
assistance, and turned with three strokes a very absurd drawing of Mrs.
Laudersdale's into a splendid caricature. Having made himself thus
generally useful, he now proceeded to make himself generally agreeable;
went with all necessary gravity through a series of complicate
dancing-steps with Miss Heath; begged Miss Purcell, who was longing to
cry over her novel, to allow him to read for her, since he saw that she
was trying her eyes, and therewith made _fiasco_ of a page of delicious
dolor; and being challenged to chess by a third, declared that was
child's play, and dominoes was the game for science,--whereon, having
seated a circle at that absorbing sport, he deserted for a meerschaum
and the gentlemen, and in company with Captain Purcell, Mr. McLean, and
the rest, rolled up from the hall below wreaths of smoke, bursts of
laughter, and finally chimes of those concordant voices with which
gentlemen talk politics, and, even when agreeing infamously, become
vociferant and high-colored.

It was after lunch that Mrs. Laudersdale, having grown weary of the
needle-women's thread of discourse, left the sewing-room and proceeded
toward her own apartment. Just as she crossed the head of the staircase,
the hall-door was flung open, admitting a gleeful blast of the
boisterous gale, and an object that, puffing and blowing like a sad-hued
dolphin, and shaking like a Newfoundland, appeared at first to be the
famous South-West Wind, Esq., in proper person,--whose once sumptuous
array clung to his form, and whose face and hands, shining as coal,
rolled off the rain like a bronze.

"Bless my heart, Capua!" cried Mr. Raleigh, removing the stem from his
lips; "how came you here?"

"Lors, Massa, it's only me," said Capua.

"So I see," replied his master, restoring the pipe to its former
position. "How did you come?"

"'Bout swimmed, I 'spect," answered Capua, grounding a chuckle on a reef
of ivory. "'Ta'n't no fish-story, dat!"

"Well, what brings you?"

"Naughty Nan,--she hadn't been out"--

"Do you mean to say, you rascal! that you've taken Nan out on such a
day? and round the lake, too, I'll warrant?" asked Mr. Raleigh, with
some excitement.

"Jes' dat; an' round de lake, ob course; we couldn' come acrost."

"You've ruined her, then"------

"Bress you, Massa, she won't ketch no cold,--she! Smokes like a beaver
now; came like streak o' lightnin'."

"You may as well swim her back,--and where we can all see the sport,
too."

"But"

"No buts about it, Capua," insisted his master, with mock gravity, the
stem between his teeth.

"'Spect I'd better rub her down, now I'se here, an' wait'll it holds up
a bit, Mass' Roger?" urged Capua, coaxingly.

"Do as you're bid!" ejaculated his master; which, evidently, from long
habit, meant, Do as you please.

Mrs. Laudersdale and Helen Heath had crept down the stairs during this
dialogue, and now stood interested spectators of the scene. Mrs. McLean
came running down behind them.

"Forgotten me, Capua?" said she.

"Lors, Miss Kate!" he replied, scraping his foot and pulling off his
hat,--"Cap never f'gets his friends, though you've growed. How d'ye do,
Miss Kate?"

"Nicely, thank you. And how's your wife?"

"My wife? Well, she's 'bout beat out. Massa Roger 'n' I, we buried her;
finer funeral dan Massa Roger's own mother, Miss Kate, dat was!"

"Poor fellow! I'm so sorry!" began Mrs. McLean, consolingly.

"Well, Miss Kate, you know some folks is easier spared 'n others. Some
tongues sharper 'n others. Alwes liked to gib a hot temper time to cool,
's Massa says."

"And how do _you_ do, Capua?"

"Pretty well, Miss Kate; leastways, I'se well enough,--a'n't so pretty."

"_What_ is his name?" whispered Helen.

"'Annible, Missis," said the attentive Capua, whose eyes had been for
some time oscillating with indecision between Helen Heath and Mrs.
Laudersdale. "Hannibal Raleigh's my name; though Massa alwes call me
Cap," he added, insinuatingly,--which, by the way, "Massa" never had
been known to do.

"And are you always going to stay and take care of Master Roger?"

"'Spect I shall. Lors, Miss Kate, he's more bother to me 'n all my
work,--dat boy!"

"That will do, Capua," said his master; "you may go." And therewith
Capua scuffled away.

"Well, Roger, what does this mean?" asked Mrs. McLean, as the door
closed.

"It means that Capua, having been dying of curiosity, has resolved to
die game, and therefore takes matters into his own hands, and arrives to
inspect my conduct and my company."

"Ah, I see. He trembles for his sceptre."

"Miss Heath," said Mr. McLean, rallyingly, "you received a great many of
the sable shafts."

"A Saint Sebastiana," said his wife.

"Did Saint Sebastian die of his wounds?" asked Helen.

"Let me tell you, Miss Helen," said Mr. Raleigh, "that Capua is a
connoisseur, and his _dictum_ is worth all flatteries. If he had only
been with us this morning!"

"You have teased me so much about that, Mr. Raleigh, that I have half a
mind never to go with you on another expedition."

"Make no rash vows. I was just thinking what fine company you would
be when trouting. The most enchanting quiet is required then, you are
aware."

"Oh! when shall we go trouting?"

"We? It was only half a mind, then! We will go to-morrow, wind and
weather agreeing."

"And what must I do?"

"You must keep still, stand in the shadow, and fish up-stream."

At this point, Capua put his head inside the door again.

"What is it?" asked Mr. Raleigh.

"Forgot to say, Massa," replied Capua, rolling his eyes fearfully, and
still hesitating, and half-closing the door, and then looking back.

"Well, Capua?"

"Mass' Raleigh, your house done been burned up!" said Capua, at last,
jerking back his head, as if afraid of losing it.

"Ah? And what did you do with"----

"Oh, eberyting safe an' sound. 'Ta'n't dat house; 'ta'n't dis yer house
Massa lib in;--Massa's _sparrer_-house. Reckoned I'd better come and
'form him."

"Is that all?" asked his master, who was accustomed to Capua's method of
breaking ill news.

"Now, Mass' Roger, don't you go to being pervoked an' flyin' into one
ob dese yer tempers! It's all distinguished now. Ole Cap didn' want to
shock his young massa, so thought 'twarn't de wisest way to tell him
'twarn't de sparrer-house, either, at first. 'Twas de inside ob de
libery, if he must know de troof; wet an' smutty dar now, mebbe, but no
fire."

"Why not? What made the fire go out?" asked Mr. Raleigh, composedly.

"Well, two reasons," replied Capua, rolling a glance over the
company;--"one was dis chile's exertions; an' t'other fact, on account
ob wich de flames was checked, was because dere warn't no more to burn.
Hi!"

"Capua, take Nan, and don't let me see your face again, till I send for
it!" said his master, now slightly irate.

"Massa's nigger alwes mind him," was the dutiful response.

Mrs. Laudersdale's handkerchief fell at that moment from the hand that
hung over the balustrade. Capua darted to restore it.

"Bress her pretty eyes!" said he. "Ole Cap see's fur into a millstone as
any one!" and vanished through the doorway.

"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Raleigh, turning to Mrs. Laudersdale. "He
has refused to leave me, and I must indulge him too much, and my
sins fall on the head of the nearest passer. He appears to have a
constitutional inability to comprehend this absence of punishment. His
immunity is so painful to him that I sometimes fancy him to be homesick
for a lashing. Now if I do not hasten home, Kate, I shall find a
conflagration of the whole house there before me."

And making quick adieux,--while Mrs. Laudersdale jested about tempting
the raging waters, and the dinner-bell was ringing, and Helen singing,
"Come o'er the stream, Charlie, and dine wi' McLean,"--he opened the
door, suffered a patch of blue sky to be seen, and the segment of an
afternoon rainbow, shut it, and was gone.

Early again the next morning, Mr. Raleigh sought the Bawn, followed this
time by Capua, who was determined not to lose any ground once made, and
who now carried the rods, bait, and other paraphernalia.

"Powerful pretty woman, dat, Massa!" said he, as through the open doors
a voice was heard gayly exclaiming and answering.

"Which one, Capua?" asked his master.

"A'n't no t'orrer," was his reply; "leastwise, a'n't no 'count,--good
for nott'n. Now she,--pity she a'n't single, Massa,--should say she'd
lived where sun was plenty and had laid up heaps in her heart."

Here Mrs. Laudersdale came out, and shortly afterward Helen and three or
four others. In reply to their questions, Mr. Raleigh stated that the
preceding day's disaster had been occasioned by a meerschaum, and had
merely charred a table with its superficies of papers and pamphlets,
which Capua had chosen to magnify for his own purposes; and the
assemblage immediately turned its course inland and toward the brooks.
The two who led soon distanced the rest, Capua trudging respectfully
behind and keeping them in sight. Here, as they brushed along through
the woods, they delayed in order to examine a partridge's nest, to
tree a squirrel, to gather some strange wild-flower opening at their
approach. Here on the banks they watched the bitterns rise and sail
heavily away, and finally in silence commenced the genuine sport.

"Nonsense!" said Helen Heath, meaningly, as Mrs. Laudersdale, when the
others joined them, displayed her first capture. "Is that all you've
caught?"

Mrs. Laudersdale drew in another for reply.

"How absurd!" said Helen. "Here a month ago you were the dearest and
most helpless of mortals, and now you are doing everything!"

The other opened her eyes a moment, and then laughed.

"Hush!" said she.

"Shs! shs!" echoed Capua, making an infinite hubbub himself.

Silence accordingly reigned and produced a string fit for the Sultan's
kitchen,--of all the number, Mrs. Laudersdale adding by far the
majority,--possibly because her shining prey found destination in
the same basket with Mr. Raleigh's,--possibly because, as Helen had
intimated, a sudden deftness had bewitched her fingers, so that neither
dropping rod nor tangling reel detained her for an instant.

"Our lines have fallen in pleasant places," said Helen, as they took at
last their homeward path; "and what a shame! not an adventure yet!"

Mrs. McLean hung on Mr. Raleigh's arm as they went,--for she had taken a
whim and feared to see her cousin in the fangs of a coquette; by which
means Helen became the companion of Captain Purcell and his daughter,
and Mrs. Laudersdale kept lightly in advance, leading a gambol with
the greyhound that Capua had added to the party, and presenting in one
person, as she went springing from knoll to knoll along the bank, now in
sunshine, now in shade, lifting the green boughs or sweeping them aside,
a succession of the vivid figures of some antique and processional
frieze. Suddenly, with a quick cry, she disappeared, and Helen had her
adventure. Mr. Raleigh darted forward, while the hound came frisking
back; yet, when he found her fainting in the hollow, stood with stolid
immobility until Capua snatched her up and carried her along in his
arms, leaving his master to reflect how many times such swarthy
servitors might have borne her, as a child, through her island groves.
And thus the party, somewhat sobered, resumed their march again. But in
the discovery that he had not dared to lift her in his arms, he who
took such liberties with every one,--that, lying under her semblance of
death, she had inspired him with a certain awe, that he had suddenly
found this woman to be an object somewhat sacred,--in this discovery Mr.
Raleigh learned not a little. And it would not, perhaps, be an untrue
surmise that he found therein as much of pain as of any other emotion;
since all the experiences and passions of life must share the phenomena
of the great fact itself whose pulse beats through them; and if to love
unawares be to dwell like a child in the region of thoughtless and
innocent bliss, in attaining manhood all the sadness which is to be
eliminated from life becomes apparent, and bliss henceforth must be
sought and earned. From that day, then, Mr. Raleigh with difficulty
retained his former habits, prevented any eagerness of manner,
maintained a cautious vigilance, and in so doing he again became aware
that the easy _insouciance_ with which he addressed all other women had
long been lost toward Mrs. Laudersdale, or, if yet existing, had become
like the light and tender play of any lingering summer-wind in the tress
upon her brow.

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