still Magdalen remained shut up in her own
room. No restless footsteps pattered on the
stairs; no nimble tongue was heard chattering
here, there, and everywhere, from the garret to
the kitchen—the house seemed hardly like itself,
with the one ever-disturbing element in the
family serenity suddenly withdrawn from it.
Anxious to witness, with her own eyes, the reality
of a transformation in which past experience still
inclined her to disbelieve, Miss Garth ascended
to Magdalen's room, knocked twice at the door,
received no answer, opened it, and looked in.

There sat Magdalen, in an arm-chair before the
long looking-glass, with all her hair let down over
her shoulders; absorbed in the study of her part;
and comfortably arrayed in her morning wrapper,
until it was time to dress for dinner. And there
behind her sat the lady's-maid, slowly combing
out the long heavy locks of her young mistress's
hair, with the sleepy resignation of a woman who
had been engaged in that employment for some
hours past. The sun was shining; and the green
shutters outside the window were closed. The
dim light fell tenderly on the two quiet seated
figures; on the little white bed, with the knots
of rose-coloured ribbon which looped up its
curtains, and the bright dress for dinner laid
ready across it; on the gaily painted bath, with
its pure lining of white enamel; on the toilet-table
with its sparkling trinkets, its crystal
bottles, its silver bell with Cupid for a handle,
its litter of little luxuries that adorn the shrine
of a woman's bedchamber. The luxurious tranquillity
of the scene; the cool fragrance of
flowers and perfumes in the atmosphere; the
rapt attitude of Magdalen, absorbed over her
reading; the monotonous regularity of movement
in the maid's hand and arm, as she drew the comb
smoothly through and through her mistress's hair
—all conveyed the same soothing impression of
drowsy delicious quiet. On one side of the door
were the broad daylight, and the familiar realities
of life. On the other, was the dreamland of
Elysian serenity—the sanctuary of unruffled
repose.

Miss Garth paused on the threshold, and
looked into the room in silence.

Magdalen's curious fancy for having her hair
combed at all times and seasons, was among the
peculiarities of her character which were notorious
to everybody in the house. It was one of her
father's favourite jokes, that she reminded him,
on such occasions, of a cat having her back
stroked, and that he always expected, if the
combing were only continued long enough, to
hear her purr. Extravagant as it may seem, the
comparison was not altogether inappropriate.
The girl's fervid temperament intensified the
essentially feminine pleasure that most women
feel in the passage of the comb through their
hair, to a luxury of sensation which absorbed her
in enjoyment, so serenely self-demonstrative, so
drowsily deep, that it did irresistibly suggest a
pet cat's enjoyment under a caressing hand. Intimately
as Miss Garth was acquainted with this
peculiarity in her pupil, she now saw it asserting
itself, for the first time, in association with mental
exertion of any kind on Magdalen's part. Feeling,
therefore, some curiosity to know how long the
combing and the studying had gone on together,
she ventured on putting the question, first, to
the mistress; and (receiving no answer in that
quarter) secondly, to the maid.

"All the afternoon, Miss, off and on," was the
weary answer. " Miss Magdalen says it soothes
her feelings and clears her mind."

Knowing by experience that interference would
be hopeless, under these circumstances, Miss
Garth turned sharply and left the room. She
smiled when she was outside on the landing.
The female mind does occasionally—though not
often—project itself into the future. Miss Garth
was prophetically pitying Magdalen's unfortunate
husband.

Dinner-time presented the fair student to the
family eye in the same mentally absorbed aspect.
On all ordinary occasions, Magdalen's appetite
would have terrified those feeble sentimentalists
who affect to ignore the all-important influence
which female feeding exerts in the production of
female beauty. On this occasion, she refused
one dish after another with a resolution which
implied the rarest of all modern martyrdoms—
gastric martyrdom. " I have conceived the part
of Lucy," she observed, with the demurest
gravity. " The next difficulty is to make Frank
conceive the part of Falkland. I see nothing to
laugh at—you would all be serious enough if you
had my responsibilities. No, papa—no wine today,
thank you. I must keep my intelligence
clear. Water, Thomas—and a little more jelly,
1 think, before you take it away."

When Frank presented himself in the evening,
ignorant of the first elements of his part, she took
him in hand, as a middle-aged schoolmistress
might have taken in hand a backward little boy.
The few attempts he made to vary the sternly
practical nature of the evening's occupation by
slipping in compliments sidelong, she put away
from her with the contemptuous self-possession
of a woman of twice her age. She literally
forced him into his part. Her father fell asleep
in his chair. Mrs. Vanstone and Miss Garth lost
their interest in the proceedings, retired to the
farther end of the room, and spoke together in
whispers. It grew later and later; and still
Magdalen never flinched from her task—still,
with equal perseverance, Norah, who had been
on the watch all through the evening, kept on
the watch to the end. The distrust darkened
and darkened on her face as she looked at her
sister and Frank; as she saw how close they sat
together, devoted to the same interest and working
to the same end. The clock on the mantelpiece
pointed to half-past eleven, before Lucy the
resolute, permitted Falkland the helpless to shut
up his task-book for the night. " She's wonderfully
clever, isn't she?" said Frank, taking leave
of Mr. Vanstone at the hall-door. "I'm to come
to-morrow, and hear more of her views—if you
have no objection. I shall never do it; don't tell
her I said so. As fast as she teaches me one