How can I manage it? Monday will be too late
for my business at Grailsea. I'll go to-day,
instead; and take my chance of catching the miller
at his dinner-time." He looked at his watch.
"No time for driving; I must do it by railway.
If I go at once, I shall catch the down train at
our station, and get on to Grailsea. Take care
of the letter, Norah. I won't keep dinner waiting;
if the return train doesn't suit, I'll borrow
a gig, and get back in that way."

As he took up his hat, Magdalen appeared at
the door, returning from her interview with
Frank. The hurry of her father's movements
attracted her attention; and she asked him where
he was going.

"To Grailsea," replied Mr. Vanstone. "Your
business, Miss Magdalen, has got in the way of
mine—and mine must give way to it."

He spoke those parting words in his old hearty
manner; and left them, with the old
characteristic flourish of his trusty stick.

"My business!" said Magdalen. "I thought
my business was done."

Miss Garth pointed significantly to the letter
in Norah's hand. "Your business, beyond all
doubt," she said. "Mr. Pendril is coming to-
morrow; and Mr. Vanstone seems remarkably
anxious about it. Law, and its attendant
troubles already! Governesses who look in at
summer-house doors are not the only obstacles to
the course of true love. Parchment is
sometimes an obstacle. I hope you may find Parchment
as pliable as I am—wish you well through
it. Now, Norah!"

Miss Garth's second shaft struck as harmless
as the first. Magdalen had returned to the
house, a little vexed; her interview with Frank
having been interrupted by a messenger from
Mr. Clare, sent to summon the son into the
father's presence. Although it had been agreed
at the private interview between Mr.
Vanstone and Mr. Clare, that the questions
discussed that morning should not be communicated
to the children, until the year of probation
was at an end—and although, under these
circumstances, Mr. Clare had nothing to tell Frank
which Magdalen could not communicate to him
much more agreeably—the philosopher was not
the less resolved on personally informing his son
of the parental concession which rescued him
from Chinese exile. The result was a sudden
summons to the cottage, which startled
Magdalen, but which did not appear to take Frank
by surprise. His filial experience penetrated the
mystery of Mr. Clare's motives easily enough.
"When my father's in spirits," he said, sulkily,
"he likes to bully me about my good luck. This
message means that he's going to bully me
now."

"Don't go," suggested Magdalen.

"I must," rejoined Frank. "I shall never
hear the last of it, if I don't. He's primed and
loaded, and he means to go off. He went off,
once, when the engineer took me; he went off,
twice, when the office in the City took me; and
he's going off, thrice, now you've taken me. If
it wasn't for you, I should wish I had never been
born. Yes; your father's been kind to me, I
know—and I should have gone to China, if it
hadn't been for him. I'm sure I'm very much
obliged. Of course, we have no right to expect
anything else—still, it's discouraging to keep us
waiting a year, isn't it?"

Magdalen stopped his mouth by a summary
process, to which even Frank submitted
gratefully. At the same time, she did not forget to
set down his discontent to the right side. "How
fond he is of me!" she thought. "A year's
waiting is quite a hardship to him." She
returned to the house, secretly regretting that she
had not heard more of Frank's complimentary
complaints. Miss Garth's elaborate satire,
addressed to her while she was in this frame of
mind, was a purely gratuitous waste of Miss
Garth's breath. What did Magdalen care for
satire? What do Youth and Love ever care for,
except themselves? She never even said as much
as "Pooh!" this time. She laid aside her hat in
serene silence, and sauntered languidly into the
morning-room to keep her mother company.
She lunched on dire forebodings of a quarrel
between Frank and his father, with accidental
interruptions in the shape of cold chicken and
cheesecakes. She trifled away half an hour at
the piano; and played, in that time, selections
from the Songs of Mendelssohn, the Mazurkas
of Chopin, the Operas of Verdi, and the Sonatas of
Mozart—all of whom had combined together on
this occasion, and produced one immortal work,
entitled "Frank." She closed the piano and
went up to her room, to dream away the hours
luxuriously in visions of her married future.
The green shutters were closed, the easy chair
was pushed in front of the glass, the maid was
summoned as usual; and the comb assisted the
mistress's reflections, through the medium of the
mistress's hair, till heat and idleness asserted
their narcotic influences together, and Magdalen
fell asleep.

It was past three o'clock when she woke.
On going down stairs again she found her mother,
Norah, and Miss Garth all sitting together
enjoying the shade and the coolness under the open
portico in front of the house.

Norah had the railway time-table in her hand.
They had been discussing the chances of Mr.
Vanstone's catching the return train, and getting
back in good time. That topic had led them,
next, to his business errand at Grailsea—an
errand of kindness, as usual; undertaken for the
benefit of the miller, who had been his old farm-
servant, and who was now hard pressed by
serious pecuniary difficulties. From this they
had glided insensibly into a subject often
repeated among them, and never exhausted by
repetition—the praise of Mr. Vanstone himself.
Each one of the three had some experience of her
own to relate of his simple, generous nature.
The conversation seemed to be almost painfully