even more serious to me," she resumed, "for
private reasons—than it is to my sister. I
know nothing yet, but that our father's brother
has taken our fortunes from us. He must have
some motives of his own for such conduct as
that. It is not fair to him, or fair to us, to
keep those motives concealed. He has
deliberately robbed Norah, and robbed me; and I
think we have a right, if we wish it, to know
why."

"I don't wish it," said Norah.

"I do," said Magdalen; and, once more, she
held out her hand.

At this point, Mr. Clare roused himself, and
interfered for the first time.

"You have relieved your conscience," he
said, addressing the lawyer. "Give her the
right she claims. It is her right—if she will
have it."

Mr. Pendril quietly took the written instructions
from his pocket. "I have warned you,"
he said—and handed the papers across the
table, without another word. One of the pages
of writing was folded down at the corner; and,
at that folded page, the manuscript opened,
when Magdalen first turned the leaves. "Is
this the place which refers to my sister and
myself?" she inquired. Mr. Pendril bowed;
and Magdalen smoothed out the manuscript
before her, on the table.

"Will you decide, Norah?" she asked, turning
to her sister. "Shall I read this aloud, or
shall I read it to myself?"

"To yourself," said Miss Garth; answering
for Norah, who looked at her in mute perplexity
and distress.

"It shall be as you wish," said Magdalen.
With that reply, she turned again to the
manuscript, and read these lines:-—

". . . . . You are now in possession of my
wishes in relation to the property in money, and
to the sale of the furniture, carriages, horses,
and so forth. The last point left, on which it
is necessary for me to instruct you, refers to the
persons inhabiting the house, and to certain
preposterous claims on their behalf, set up by a
solicitor named Pendril; who has no doubt
interested reasons of his own for making application
to me.

"I understand that my late brother has left
two illegitimate children; both of them young
women, who are of an age to earn their own
livelihood. Various considerations, all equally
irregular, have been urged in respect to these
persons, by the solicitor representing them. Be
so good as to tell him that neither you nor I
have anything to do with questions of mere
sentiment; and then state plainly, for his better
information, what the motives are which
regulate my conduct, and what the provision is
which I feel myself justified in making for the
two young women. Your instructions on both
these points, you will find detailed in the next
paragraph.

"I wish the persons concerned, to know,
once for all, how I regard the circumstances
which have placed my late brother's property at
my disposal. Let them understand that I
consider those circumstances to be a Providential
interposition, which has restored to me the
inheritance that ought always to have been mine.
I receive the money, not only as my right, but
also as a proper compensation for the injustice
which I suffered from my father, and a proper
penalty paid by my younger brother for the vile
intrigue by which he succeeded in disinheriting
me. His conduct, when a young man, was
uniformly discreditable in all the relations of life;
and what it then was, it continued to be (on the
showing of his own legal representative) after
the time when I ceased to hold any communication
with him. He appears to have systematically
imposed a woman on Society as his wife,
who was not his wife; and to have completed
the outrage on morality by afterwards marrying
her. Such conduct as this, has called down a
Judgment, on himself and his children. I will
not invite retribution on my own head, by
assisting those children to continue the
imposition which their parents practised, and by
helping them to take a place in the world to
which they are not entitled. Let them, as
becomes their birth, gain their bread in situations.
If they show themselves disposed to
accept their proper position, I will assist them
to start virtuously in life, by a present of one
hundred pounds each. This sum I authorise
you to pay them, on their personal
application, with the necessary acknowledgment of
receipt; and on the express understanding
that the transaction, so completed, is to be the
beginning and the end of my connexion with
them. The arrangements under which they
quit the house, I leave to your discretion; and
I have only to add that my decision on this
matter, as on all other matters, is positive and
final."

Line by line—without once looking up from
the pages before her—Magdalen read those
atrocious sentences through, from beginning to
end. The other persons assembled in the room,
all eagerly looking at her together, saw the
dress rising and falling faster and faster over
her bosom—saw the hand in which she lightly
held the manuscript at the outset, close
unconsciously on the paper, and crush it, as she
advanced nearer and nearer to the end—but
detected no other outward signs of what was passing
within her. As soon as she had done, she
silently pushed the manuscript away, and put
her hands on a sudden over her face. When
she withdrew them, all the four persons in the
room noticed a change in her. Something in
her expression had altered, subtly and silently;
something which made the familiar features
suddenly look strange, even to her sister and
Miss Garth; something, through all after years,
never to be forgotten in connexion with that
day—and never to be described.

The first words she spoke were addressed to
Mr. Pendril.

"May I ask one more favour," she said,