death in the
admiral's family, to good account, by continuing the all-important
practice of those domestic lessons, on the perfect acquirement of which
her mistress's daring stratagem depended for its success. Thanks to
the time thus gained, when Louisa's marriage was over, and the day
of parting had come, Magdalen had learned and mastered, in the nicest
detail, everything that her former servant could teach her. On the
day when she passed the doors of St. Crux she entered on her desperate
venture, strong in the ready presence of mind under emergencies which
her later life had taught her, stronger still in the trained capacity
that she possessed for the assumption of a character not her own,
strongest of all in her two months' daily familiarity with the practical
duties of the position which she had undertaken to fill.

As soon as Mrs. Drake's departure had left her alone, she unpacked her
box, and dressed herself for the evening.

She put on a lavender-colored stuff-gown--half-mourning for Mrs.
Girdlestone; ordered for all the servants, under the admiral's
instructions--a white muslin apron, and a neat white cap and collar,
with ribbons to match the gown. In this servant's costume--in the plain
gown fastening high round her neck, in the neat little white cap at
the back of her head--in this simple dress, to the eyes of all men,
not linen-drapers, at once the most modest and the most alluring that
a woman can wear, the sad changes which mental suffering had wrought
in her beauty almost disappeared from view. In the evening costume of
a lady, with her bosom uncovered, with her figure armed, rather than
dressed, in unpliable silk, the admiral might have passed her by without
notice in his own drawing-room. In the evening costume of a servant,
no admirer of beauty could have looked at her once and not have turned
again to look at her for the second time.

Descending the stairs, on her way to the house-keeper's room, she passed
by the entrances to two long stone corridors, with rows of doors opening
on them; one corridor situated on the second, and one on the first floor
of the house. "Many rooms!" she thought, as she looked at the doors.
"Weary work searching here for what I have come to find!"

On reaching the ground-floor she was met by a weather-beaten old man,
who stopped and stared at her with an appearance of great interest. He
was the same old man whom Captain Wragge had seen in the backyard at St.
Crux, at w