in her face; the enticing gaiety which took
the hearts of the quietest people by storm—even
the reckless delight in bright colours, which
showed itself in her brilliantly-striped morning
dress, in her fluttering ribbons, in the large scarlet
rosettes on her smart little shoes—all sprang
alike from the same source; from the overflowing
physical health which strengthened every
muscle, braced every nerve, and set the warm
young blood tingling through her veins, like the
blood of a growing child.

On her entry into the breakfast-room, she was
saluted with the customary remonstrance which
her flighty disregard of all punctuality habitually
provoked from the long-suffering household
authorities. In Miss Garth's favourite phrase,
"Magdalen was born with all the senses—except
a sense of order."

Magdalen! It was a strange name to have
given her? Strange, indeed; and yet, chosen
under no extraordinary circumstances. The
name had been borne by one of Mr. Vanstone's
sisters, who had died in early youth; and,
in affectionate remembrance of her, he had
called his second daughter by it—just as he had
called his eldest daughter Norah, for his wife's
sake. Magdalen!  Surely, the grand old Bible
name—suggestive of a sad and sombre dignity;
recalling, in its first association, mournful ideas
of penitence and seclusion—had been here, as
events had turned out, inappropriately bestowed?
Surely, this self-contradictory girl had perversely
accomplished one contradiction more, by developing
into a character which was out of all harmony
with her own christian name!

"Late again!" said Mrs. Vanstone, as
Magdalen breathlessly kissed her.

"Late again!" chimed in Miss Garth, when
Magdalen came her way next. "Well?" she
went on, taking the girl's chin familiarly in her
hand, with a half-satirical, half-fond attention
which betrayed that the youngest daughter, with
all her faults, was the governess's favourite—
"Well? and what has the concert done for
you? What form of suffering has dissipation
inflicted on your system, this morning?"

"Suffering!" repeated Magdalen, recovering
her breath, and the use of her tongue with it.
"I don't know the meaning of the word:
if there's anything the matter with me, I'm too
well. Suffering!  I'm ready for another concert
to-night, and a ball to-morrow, and a play the
day after. Oh," cried Magdalen, dropping into
a chair and crossing her hands rapturously on
the table, "how I do like pleasure!"

"Come! that's explicit, at any rate," said
Miss Garth. "I think Pope must have had you
in his mind, when he wrote his famous lines:

Men some to business, some to pleasure take,
But every woman is at heart a rake."

"The deuce she is!" cried Mr. Vanstone,
entering the room while Miss Garth was making
her quotation, with the dogs at his heels.
"Well; live and learn. If you're all rakes,
Miss Garth, the sexes are turned topsy-turvy
with a vengeance; and the men will have
nothing left for it, but to stop at home and darn
the stockings.—Let's have some breakfast."

"How-d'ye-do, papa?" said Magdalen, taking
Mr. Vanstone as boisterously round the neck, as
if he belonged to some larger order of
Newfoundland dog, and was made to be romped with
at his daughter's convenience. "I'm the rake
Miss Garth means; and I want to go to another
concert—or a play, if you like—or a ball, if you
prefer it—or, anything else in the way of amusement
that puts me into a new dress, and plunges
me into a crowd of people, and illuminates me
with plenty of light, and sets me in a tingle of
excitement all over from head to foot. Anything
will do, as long as it doesn't send us to bed
at eleven o'clock."

Mr. Vanstone sat down composedly under his
daughter's flow of language, like a man who was
well used to verbal inundation from that quarter.
"If I am to be allowed my choice of amusements
next time," said the worthy gentleman, "I think a
play will suit me better than a concert. The girls
enjoyed themselves amazingly, my dear," he
continued, addressing his wife. "More than I did, I
must say. It was altogether above my mark. They
played one piece of music which lasted forty
minutes. It stopped three times by the way;
and we all thought it was done each time, and
clapped our hands, rejoiced to be rid of it.
But on it went again, to our great surprise and
mortification, till we gave it up in despair, and all
wished ourselves at Jericho. Norah, my dear!
when we had Crash-Bang for forty minutes,
with three stoppages by the way, what did they
call it?"

"A Symphony, papa," replied Norah.

" Yes, you darling old Goth, a Symphony by
the great Beethoven!" added Magdalen. "How
can you say you were not amused? Have
you forgotten the yellow-looking foreign woman,
with the unpronounceable name? Don't you
remember the faces she made when she sang?
and the way she curtseyed and curtseyed, till she
cheated the foolish people into crying encore?
Look here, mamma—look here, Miss Garth!"

She snatched up an empty plate from the table,
to represent a sheet of music, held it before her
in the established concert-room position, and
produced an imitation of the unfortunate singer's
grimaces and curtseyings, so accurately and
quaintly true to the original, that her father
roared with laughter; and even the footman
(who came in at that moment, with the post-bag)
rushed out of the room again, and committed the
indecorum of echoing his master audibly on the
other side of the door.

"Letters, papa.  I want the key," said
Magdalen, passing from the imitation at the
breakfast-table to the post-bag on the sideboard, with
the easy abruptness which characterised all her
actions.

Mr. Vanstone searched his pockets and shook