day, sailing through the night. Oh, Frank, love
me!"

Her eyes filled with tears. She dashed them
away, made for the door, and laughed with a
desperate levity, as she unlocked it again.

"Any company is better than my own
thoughts," she burst out recklessly, as she left
the room. "I'm forgetting my ready-made
relations—my half-witted aunt, and my uncle the
rogue." She descended the stairs to the landing
on the first floor, and paused there in momentary
hesitation. "How will it end?" she asked
herself. "Where is my blindfold journey taking me
to now? Who knows, and who cares?"

She entered the room.

Captain Wragge was presiding at the tea-tray,
with the air of a prince in his own banqueting-
hall. At one side of the table sat Mrs. Wragge,
watching her husband's eye, like an animal
waiting to be fed. At the other side was an
empty chair, towards which the captain waved
his persuasive hand, when Magdalen came in.
"How do you like your room?" he inquired;
"I trust Mrs. Wragge has made herself useful?
You take milk and sugar? Try the local bread,
honour the York butter, test the freshness of a
new and neighbouring egg. I offer my little all.
A pauper's meal, my dear girl—seasoned with a
gentleman's welcome."

"Seasoned with salt, pepper, chives, and
parsley," murmured Mrs. Wragge, catching
instantly at a word in connexion with cookery, and
harnessing her head to the omelette for the rest
of the evening.

"Sit straight at the table!" shouted the
captain. "More to the left, more still—that will
do. During your absence upstairs," he
continued, addressing himself to Magdalen, "my
mind has not been unemployed. I have been
considering your position, with a view
exclusively to your own benefit. If you decide on being
guided to-morrow by the light of my experience,
that light is unreservedly at your service. You
may naturally say, 'I know but little of you,
captain, and that little is unfavourable.' Granted,
on one condition—that you permit me to make
myself and my character quite familiar to you,
when tea is over. False shame is foreign to my
nature. You see my wife, my house, my bread,
my butter, and my eggs, all exactly as they are.
See me, too, my dear girl, while you are about
it."

When tea was over, Mrs. Wragge, at a signal
from her husband, retired to a corner of the
room, with the eternal cookery-book still in her
hand. "Mince small," she whispered confidentially,
as she passed Magdalen. "That's a
Teazer, isn't it?"

"Down at heel again!" shouted the captain,
pointing to his wife's heavy flat feet as they
shuffled across the room. "The right shoe.
Pull it up at heel, Mrs. Wragge—pull it up at
heel! Pray allow me," he continued, offering his
arm to Magdalen, and escorting her to a dirty
little horsehair sofa. "You want repose—after
your long journey, you really want repose." He
drew his chair to the sofa, and surveyed her with
a bland look of investigation—as if he had been
her medical attendant, with a diagnosis on his
mind.

"Very pleasant! very pleasant!" said the
captain, when he had seen his guest comfortable
on the sofa. "I feel quite in the bosom of my
family. Shall we return to our subject—the
subject of my rascally self? No! no! No apologies,
no protestations, pray. Don't mince the
matter on your side—and depend on me not to
mince it on mine. Now come to facts; pray
come to facts. Who, and what, am I? Carry
your mind back to our conversation on the
Walls of this interesting city, and let us start
once more from your point of view. I am a
Rogue; and, in that capacity (as I have already
pointed out), the most useful man you could
possibly have met with. Now observe! There
are many varieties of Rogue; let me tell you my
variety to begin with. I am a Swindler."

His entire shamelessness was really
superhuman. Not the vestige of a blush varied the
sallow monotony of his complexion; the smile
wreathed his curly lips, as pleasantly as ever;
his parti-coloured eyes twinkled at Magdalen,
with the self-enjoying frankness of a naturally
harmless man. Had his wife heard him?
Magdalen looked over his shoulder to the corner of
the room in which she was sitting behind him.
No: the self-taught student of cookery was
absorbed in her subject. She had advanced her
imaginary omelette to the critical stage at which
the butter was to be thrown in—that vaguely-
measured morsel of butter, the size of your
thumb. Mrs. Wragge sat lost in contemplation
of one of her own thumbs, and shook her head
over it, as if it failed to satisfy her.

"Don't be shocked," proceeded the captain;
"don't be astonished. Swindler is nothing but
a word of two syllables. S, W, I, N, D—swind;
L, E, R—ler: Swindler. Definition: A moral
agriculturist; a man who cultivates the field of
human sympathy. I am that moral agriculturist,
that cultivating man. Narrow-minded mediocrity,
envious of my success in my profession,
calls me a Swindler. What of that? The same
low tone of mind assails men in other professions
in a similar manner—calls great writers,
scribblers—great generals, butchers—and so on.
It entirely depends on the point of view. Adopting
your point, I announce myself intelligibly as
a Swindler. Now return the obligation, and
adopt mine. Hear what I have to say for
myself, in the exercise of my profession.— Shall I
continue to put it frankly?"

"Yes," said Magdalen; "and I'll tell you
frankly afterwards what I think of it."

The captain cleared his throat; mentally
assembled his entire army of words—horse, foot,
artillery, and reserves; put himself at the head;
and dashed into action, to carry the moral
entrenchments of Society by a general charge.