ely, and sent the landlady's daughter away
with it to the nearest Receiving-house. "That difficulty is disposed
of," she thought, as she went back to her own room again.

Mrs. Wragge was still occupied in sorting her parcels on her narrow
little bed. She turned round with a faint scream when Magdalen looked
in at her. "I thought it was the ghost again," said Mrs. Wragge. "I'm
trying to take warning, my dear, by what's happened to me. I've put all
my parcels straight, just as the captain would like to see 'em. I'm
up at heel with both shoes. If I close my eyes to-night--which I don't
think I shall--I'll go to sleep as straight as my legs will let me. And
I'll never have another holiday as long as I live. I hope I shall be
forgiven," said Mrs. Wragge, mournfully shaking her head. "I humbly hope
I shall be forgiven."

"Forgiven!" repeated Magdalen. "If other women wanted as little
forgiving as you do--Well! well! Suppose you open some of these parcels.
Come! I want to see what you have been buying to-day."

Mrs. Wragge hesitated, sighed penitently, considered a little,
stretched out her hand timidly toward one of the parcels, thought of
the supernatural warning, and shrank back from her own purchases with a
desperate exertion of self-control.

"Open this one." said Magdalen, to encourage her: "what is it?"

Mrs. Wragge's faded blue eyes began to brighten dimly, in spite of her
remorse; but she self-denyingly shook her head. The master-passion of
shopping might claim his own again--but the ghost was not laid yet.

"Did you get it at a bargain?" asked Magdalen, confidentially.

"Dirt cheap!" cried poor Mrs. Wragge, falling headlong into the snare,
and darting at the parcel as eagerly as if nothing had happened.

Magdalen kept her gossiping over her purchases for an hour or more,
and then wisely determined to distract her attention from all ghostly
recollections in another way by taking her out for a walk.

As they left the lodgings, the door of Noel Vanstone's house opened, and
the woman-servant appeared, bent on another errand. She was apparently
charged with a letter on this occasion which she carried carefully in
her hand. Conscious of having formed no plan yet either for attack or
defense, Magdalen wondered, with a momentary dread, whether Mrs. Lecount
had decided already on opening fresh communications, and whether the
letter was directed to "Miss Garth."

The let ter bore no such address. Noel Vanstone had so