th-country lady. The wig
had been crumpled in packing; she put it on and went to the toilet-table
to comb it out. "His father has warned him against Magdalen Vanstone,"
she said, repeating the passage in Mrs. Lecount's letter, and laughing
bitterly, as she looked at herself in the glass. "I wonder whether his
father has warned him against Miss Garth? To-morrow is sooner than I
bargained for. No matter: to-morrow shall show."

CHAPTER II.

THE early morning, when Magdalen rose and looked out, was cloudy and
overcast. But as time advanced to the breakfast hour the threatening of
rain passed away; and she was free to provide, without hinderance
from the weather, for the first necessity of the day--the necessity of
securing the absence of her traveling companion from the house.

Mrs. Wragge was dressed, armed at all points with her collection of
circulars, and eager to be away by ten o'clock. At an earlier hour
Magdalen had provided for her being properly taken care of by the
landlady's eldest daughter--a quiet, well-conducted girl, whose interest
in the shopping expedition was readily secured by a little present of
money for the purchase, on her own account, of a parasol and a muslin
dress. Shortly after ten o'clock Magdalen dismissed Mrs. Wragge and her
attendant in a cab. She then joined the landlady--who was occupied in
setting the rooms in order upstairs--with the object of ascertaining,
by a little well-timed gossip, what the daily habits might be of the
inmates of the house.

She discovered that there were no other lodgers but Mrs. Wragge and
herself. The landlady's husband was away all day, employed at a railway
station. Her second daughter was charged with the care of the kitchen
in the elder sister's absence. The younger children were at school, and
would be back at one o'clock to dinner. The landlady herself "got up
fine linen for ladies," and expected to be occupied over her work all
that morning in a little room built out at the back of the premises.
Thus there was every facility for Magdalen's leaving the house in
disguise, and leaving it unobserved, provided she went out before the
children came back to dinner at one o'clock.

By eleven o'clock the apartments were set in order, and the landlady had
retired to pursue her own employments. Magdalen softly locked the door
of her room, drew the blind over the window, and entered at once on her
preparations for the perilous experiment of the day.

The sa