ots and brightest gloves; tie the miserable little
wretch to your apron-string--tie him fast; and leave the whole
management of the matter after that to me. Steady! here is Mrs. Wragge:
we must be doubly careful in looking after her now. Show me your cap,
Mrs. Wragge! show me your shoes! What do I see on your apron? A spot? I
won't have spots! Take it off after breakfast, and put on another. Pull
your chair to the middle of the table--more to the left--more still.
Make the breakfast."

At a quarter before eleven Mrs. Wragge (with her own entire concurrence)
was dismissed to the back room, to bewilder herself over the science of
dressmaking for the rest of the day. Punctually as the clock struck
the hour, Mrs. Lecount and her master drove up to the gate of North
Shingles, and found Magdalen and Captain Wragge waiting for them in the
garden.

On the way to Dunwich nothing occurred to disturb the enjoyment of
the drive. Noel Vanstone was in excellent health and high good-humor.
Lecount had apologized for the little misunderstanding of the previous
night; Lecount had petitioned for the excursion as a treat to herself.
He thought of these concessions, and looked at Magdalen, and smirked
and simpered without intermission. Mrs. Lecount acted her part to
perfection. She was motherly with Magdalen and tenderly attentive
to Noel Vanstone. She was deeply interested in Captain Wragge's
conversation, and meekly disappointed to find it turn on general
subjects, to the exclusion of science. Not a word or look escaped her
which hinted in the remotest degree at her real purpose. She was dressed
with her customary elegance and propriety; and she was the only one
of the party on that sultry summer's day who was perfectly cool in the
hottest part of the journey.

As they left the carriage on their arrival at Dunwich, the captain
seized a moment when Mrs. Lecount's eye was off him and fortified
Magdalen by a last warning word.

"'Ware the cat!" he whispered. "She will show her claws on the way
back."

They left the village and walked to the ruins of a convent near at
hand--the last relic of the once populous city of Dunwich which
has survived the destruction of the place, centuries since, by the
all-devouring sea. After looking at the ruins, they sought the shade of
a little wood between the village and the low sand-hills which overlook
the German Ocean. Here Captain Wragge maneuvered so as to let Magdalen
and Noel Vanstone advance s