"In honouring my husband's memory, you honour
me. But though you kindly treat me on a footing
of equality, I must not forget that I fill a domestic
situation. I shall feel it a privilege to
show you my relics, if you will allow me to ask
my master's permission first."

She turned to Mr. Noel Vanstone; her per-
fectly sincere intention of making the proposed
request,—mingling in that strange complexity of
motives which is found so much oftener in a
woman's mind than in a man's—with her jealous
distrust of the impression which Magdalen had
produced on her master.

"May I make a request, sir?" asked Mrs.
Lecount, after waiting a moment to catch any
fragments of tenderly-personal talk that might reach
her, and after being again neatly baffled by
Magdalen—thanks to the camp-stool." Mr. Bygrave
is one of the few persons in England who
appreciate my husband's scientific labours. He
honours me by wishing to see my little world of
reptiles. May I show it to him?"

"By all means, Lecount," said Mr. Noel
Vanstone, graciously. " You are an excellent
creature, and I like to oblige you. Lecount's Tank,
Mr. Bygrave, is the only tank in England—
Lecount's Toad, is the oldest toad in the world.
Will you come and drink tea, at seven o'clock
tonight? And will you prevail on Miss Bygrave
to accompany you? I want her to see my house.
I don't think she has any idea what a strong
house it is. Come and survey my premises, Miss
Bygrave. You shall have a stick, and rap on the
walls; you shall go up-stairs and stamp on the
floors and then you shall hear what it all cost."
His eyes wrinkled up cunningly at the corners, and
he slipped another tender speech into Magdalen's
ear, under cover of the all-predominating voice in
which Captain Wragge thanked him for the
invitation. "Come punctually at seven," he
whispered, "and pray wear that charming hat!"

Mrs. Lecount's lips closed ominously. She set
down the captain's niece as a very serious
drawback to the intellectual luxury of the captain's
society.

"You are fatiguing yourself, sir," she said to
her master. "This is one of your bad days. Let
me recommend you to be careful; let me beg you
to walk back."

Having carried his point by inviting the new
acquaintances to tea, Mr. Noel Vanstone proved
to be unexpectedly docile. He acknowledged
that he was a little fatigued, and turned back at
once in obedience to the housekeeper's advice.

"Take my arm, sir—take my arm, on the other
side," said Captain Wragge, as they turned to
retrace their steps. His parti-coloured eyes
looked significantly at Magdalen while he spoke,
and warned her not to stretch Mrs. Lecount's
endurance too far at starting. She instantly
understood him; and, in spite of Mr. Noel
Vanstone's reiterated assertions that he stood in no
need of the captain's arm, placed herself at once
by the housekeeper's side. Mrs. Lecount
recovered her good humour, and opened another
conversation with Magdalen, by making the one
inquiry of all others which, under existing
circumstances, was the hardest to answer.

"I presume Mrs. Bygrave is too tired, after
her journey, to come out to-day?" said Mrs.
Lecount. "Shall we have the pleasure of seeing
her to-morrow?"

"Probably not," replied Magdalen. "My
aunt is in delicate health."

"A complicated case, my dear madam," added
the captain; conscious that Mrs. Wragge's
personal appearance (if she happened to be seen by
accident) would offer the flattest of all possible
contradictions to what Magdalen had just said of
her. "There is some remote nervous mischief
which doesn't express itself externally. You
would think my wife the picture of health, if you
looked at her—and yet, so delusive are appearances,
I am obliged to forbid her all excitement.
She sees no society—our medical attendant, I
regret to say, absolutely prohibits it."

"Very sad," said Mrs. Lecount. "The poor
lady must often feel lonely, sir, when you and
your niece are away from her?"

"No," replied the captain. "Mrs. Bygrave is
a naturally domestic woman. When she is able
to employ herself, she finds unlimited resources
in her needle and thread." Having reached this
stage of the explanation—and having purposely
skirted, as it were, round the confines of truth,
in the event of the housekeeper's curiosity leading
her to make any private inquiries on the
subject of Mrs. Wragge—the captain wisely
checked his fluent tongue from carrying him into
any further details. "I have great hope from
the air of this place," he remarked, in conclusion.
"The Iodine, as I have already observed, does
wonders."

Mrs. Lecount acknowledged the virtues of
Iodine in the briefest possible form of words,
and withdrew into the innermost sanctuary of
her own thoughts. "Some mystery here," said
the housekeeper to herself. "A lady who looks
the picture of health; a lady who suffers from a
complicated nervous malady; and a lady whose
hand is steady enough to use her needle and
thread—is a living mass of contradictions I don't
quite understand. Do you make a long stay at
Aldborough, sir?" she added aloud; her eyes
resting for a moment, in steady scrutiny, on the
captain's face.

"It all depends, my dear madam, on Mrs. Bygrave.
I trust we shall stay through the autumn.
You are settled at Sea-View Cottage, I presume,
for the season?"

"You must ask my master, sir. It is for him
to decide, not for me."

The answer was an unfortunate one. Mr. Noel
Vanstone had been secretly annoyed by the
change in the walking arrangements, which had
separated him from Magdalen. He attributed
that change to the meddling influence of Mrs.
Lecount, and he now took the earliest
opportunity of resenting it on the spot.

"I have nothing to do with our stay at Aldborough,