"Letters, papa. I want the key," said Magdalen, passing from the
imitation at the breakfast-table to the post-bag on the sideboard with
the easy abruptness which characterized all her actions.

Mr. Vanstone searched his pockets and shook his head. Though his
youngest daughter might resemble him in nothing else, it was easy to see
where Magdalen's unmethodical habits came from.

"I dare say I have left it in the library, along with my other keys,"
said Mr. Vanstone. "Go and look for it, my dear."

"You really should check Magdalen," pleaded Mrs. Vanstone, addressing
her husband when her daughter had left the room. "Those habits of
mimicry are growing on her; and she speaks to you with a levity which it
is positively shocking to hear."

"Exactly what I have said myself, till I am tired of repeating it,"
remarked Miss Garth. "She treats Mr. Vanstone as if he was a kind of
younger brother of hers."

"You are kind to us in everything else, papa; and you make kind
allowances for Magdalen's high spirits--don't you?" said the quiet
Norah, taking her father's part and her sister's with so little show
of resolution on the surface that few observers would have been sharp
enough to detect the genuine substance beneath it.

"Thank you, my dear," said good-natured Mr. Vanstone. "Thank you for a
very pretty speech. As for Magdalen," he continued, addressing his wife
and Miss Garth, "she's an unbroken filly. Let her caper and kick in the