arth to Magdalen._

"Westmoreland House, July 1st.

"MY DEAR MAGDALEN--You have no useless remonstrances to apprehend at the
sight of my handwriting. My only object in this letter is to tell you
something which I know your sister will not tell you of her own
accord. She is entirely ignorant that I am writing to you. Keep her
in ignorance, if you wish to spare her unnecessary anxiety, and me
unnecessary distress.

"Norah's letter, no doubt, tells you that she has left her situation. I
feel it my painful duty to add that she has left it on your account.

"The matter occurred in this manner. Messrs. Wyatt, Pendril, and Gwilt
are the solicitors of the gentleman in whose family Norah was employed.
The life which you have chosen for yourself was known as long ago as
December last to all the partners. You were discovered performing in
public at Derby by the person who had been employed to trace you at
York; and that discovery was communicated by Mr. Wyatt to Norah's
employer a few days since, in reply to direct inquiries about you on
that gentleman's part. His wife and his mother (who lives with him)
had expressly desired that he would make those inquiries; their doubts
having been aroused by Norah's evasive answers when they questioned her
about her sister. You know Norah too well to blame her for this. Evasion
was the only escape your present life had left her, from telling a
downright falsehood.

"That same day, the two ladies of the family, the elder and the younger,
sent for your sister, and told her they had discovered that you were a
public performer, roaming from place to place in the country under an
assumed name. They were just enough not to blame Norah for this;
they were just enough to acknowledge that her conduct had been as
irreproachable as I had guaranteed it should be when I got her the
situation. But, at the same time, they made it a positive condition of
her continuing in their employment that she should never permit you to
visit her at their house, or to meet her and walk out with her when she
was in attendance on the children. Your sister--who has patiently borne
all hardships that fell on herself--instantly resented the slur cast on
_you_. She gave her employers warning on the spot. High words followed,
and she left the house that evening.

"I have no wish to distress you by representing the loss of this
situation in the light of a disaster. Norah was not so happy in it as
I had hoped and believed