sudden summons to
the cottage, which startled Magdalen, but which did not appear to take
Frank by surprise. His filial experience penetrated the mystery of Mr.
Clare's motives easily enough. "When my father's in spirits," he said,
sulkily, "he likes to bully me about my good luck. This message means
that he's going to bully me now."

"Don't go," suggested Magdalen.

"I must," rejoined Frank. "I shall never hear the last of it if I don't.
He's primed and loaded, and he means to go off. He went off, once, when
the engineer took me; he went off, twice, when the office in the City
took me; and he's going off, thrice, now _you've_ taken me. If it wasn't
for you, I should wish I had never been born. Yes; your father's been
kind to me, I know--and I should have gone to China, if it hadn't been
for him. I'm sure I'm very much obliged. Of course, we have no right to
expect anything else--still it's discouraging to keep us waiting a year,
isn't it?"

Magdalen stopped his mouth by a summary process, to which even Frank
submitted gratefully. At the same time, she did not forget to set down
his discontent to the right side. "How fond he is of me!" she thought.
"A year's waiting is quite a hardship to him." She returned to the
house, secretly regretting that she had not heard more of Frank's
complimentary complaints. Miss Garth's elaborate satire, addressed to
her while she was in this frame of mind, was a purely gratuitous waste
of Miss Garth's breath. What did Magdalen care for satire? What do Youth
and Love ever care for except themselves? She never even said as much
as "Pooh!" this time. She laid aside her hat in serene silence, and
sauntered languidly into the morning-room to keep her mother company.
She lunched on dire forebodings of a quarrel between Frank and his
father, with accidental interruptions in the shape of cold chicken and
cheese-cakes. She trifled away half an hour at the piano; and played,
in that time, selections from the Songs of Mendelssohn, the Mazurkas of
Chopin, the Operas of Verdi, and the Sonatas of Mozart--all of whom
had combined together on this occasion and produced one immortal work,
entitled "Frank." She closed the piano and went up to her room, to dream
away the hours luxuriously in visions of her married future. The green
shutters were closed, the easy-chair was pushed in front of the glass,
the maid w as summoned as usual; and the comb assisted the mistress's
reflections, through the medium of