y
mistress's orders to pack up everything in the room. You are not helping
me by coming here--you are very much in my way."

"Well!" said the house-servant, "you may be London bred, as they say.
But if these are your London manners, give me Suffolk!" She opened the
door with an angry snatch at the handle, shut it violently, opened it
again, and looked in. "Give me Suffolk!" said the house-servant, with a
parting nod of her head to point the edge of her sarcasm.

Louisa proceeded impenetrably with her packing up.

Having neatly disposed of the linen in the smaller box, she turned her
attention to the dresses next. After passing them carefully in review,
to ascertain which was the least valuable of the collection, and to
place that one at the bottom of the trunk for the rest to lie on, she
made her choice with very little difficulty. The first gown which she
put into the box was--the brown Alpaca dress.

Meanwhile Magdalen had joined the captain downstairs. Although he could
not fail to notice the languor in her face and the listlessness of all
her movements, he was relieved to find that she met him with perfect
composure. She was even self-possessed enough to ask him for news of his
journey, with no other signs of agitation than a passing change of color
and a little trembling of the lips.

"So much for the past," said Captain Wragge, when his narrative of the
expedition to London by way of St. Crux had come to an end. "Now for the
present. The bridegroom--"

"If it makes no difference," she interposed, "call him Mr. Noel
Vanstone."

"With all my heart. Mr. Noel Vanstone is coming here this afternoon to
dine and spend the evening. He will be tiresome in the last degree;
but, like all tiresome people, he is not to be got rid of on any terms.
Before he comes, I have a last word or two of caution for your private
ear. By this time to-morrow we shall have parted--without any certain
knowledge, on either side, of our ever meeting again. I am anxious to
serve your interests faithfully to the last; I am anxious you should
feel that I have done all I could for your future security when we say
good-by."

Magdalen looked at him in surprise. He spoke in altered tones. He was
agitated; he was strangely in earnest. Something in his look and manner
took her memory back to the first night at Aldborough, when she had
opened her mind to him in the darkening solitude--when they two had sat
together alone on the slope of the mart