inherited your own father's fortune, as well as the fortune of
Mr. Andrew Vanstone, and yet you feel no obligation to act from motives
of justice or generosity toward these two sisters? All you think it
necessary to say to them is, you have got the money, and you refuse to
part with a single farthing of it?"

"Most accurately stated! Miss Garth, you are a woman of business.
Lecount, Miss Garth is a woman of business."

"Don't appeal to me, sir," cried Mrs. Lecount, gracefully wringing
her plump white hands. "I can't bear it! I must interfere! Let me
suggest--oh, what do you call it in English?--a compromise. Dear Mr.
Noel, you are perversely refusing to do yourself justice; you have
better reasons than the reason you have given to Miss Garth. You follow
your honored father's example; you feel it due to his memory to act in
this matter as he acted before you. That is his reason, Miss Garth---- I
implore you on my knees to take that as his reason. He will do what his
dear father did; no more, no less. His dear father made a proposal, and
he himself will now make that proposal over again. Yes, Mr. Noel, you
will remember what this poor girl says in her letter to you. Her sister
has been obliged to go out as a governess; and she herself, in losing
her fortune, has lost the hope of her marriage for years and years to
come. You will remember this--and you will give the hundred pounds to
one, and the hundred pounds to the other, which your admirable father
offered in the past time? If he does this, Miss Garth, will he
do enough? If he gives a hundred pounds each to these unfortunate
sisters--?"

"He will repent the insult to the last hour of his life," said Magdalen.

The instant that answer passed her lips she would have given worlds
to recall it. Mrs. Lecount had planted her sting in the right place at
last. Those rash words of Magdalen's had burst from her passionately, in
her own voice.

Nothing but the habit of public performance saved her from making the
serious error that she had committed more palpable still, by attempting
to set it right. Here her past practice in the Entertainment came to
her rescue, and urged her to go on instantly in Miss Garth's voice as if
nothing had happened.

"You mean well, Mrs. Lecount," she continued, "but you are doing
harm instead of good. My pupils will accept no such compromise as you
propose. I am sorry to have spoken violently just now; I beg you will
excuse me." She looked har