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mona lisa smile
had been told did Mr. Reed lie buried; and led by this thought to
recall his idea, I dwelt on it with gathering dread. I could not
remember him; but I knew that he was my own uncle- my mother's
brother- that he had taken me when a parentless infant to his house;
and that in his last moments he had required a promise of Mrs. Reed
that she would rear and maintain me as one of her own children. Mrs.
Reed probably considered she had kept this promise; and so she had,
I dare say, as well as her nature would permit her; but how could
she really like an interloper not of her race, and unconnected with
her, after her husband's death, by any tie? It must have been most
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irksome to find herself bound by a hard-wrung pledge to stand in the
stead of a parent to a strange child she could not love, and to see an
uncongenial alien permanently intruded on her own family group.
A singular notion dawned upon me. I doubted not- never doubted-
that if Mr. Reed had been alive he would have treated me kindly; and
now, as I sat looking at the white bed and overshadowed walls-
occasionally also turning a fascinated eye towards the dimly
gleaming mirror- I began to recall what I had heard of dead men,
troubled in their graves by the violation of their last wishes,
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