"What does papa mean by being cross with Me?" exclaimed Magdalen,
chafing under a sense of her own injuries.

"May I ask--what right you had to pry into your father's private
affairs?" retorted Miss Garth.

"Right?" repeated Magdalen. "I have no secrets from papa--what business
has papa to have secrets from me! I consider myself insulted."

"If you considered yourself properly reproved for not minding your own
business," said the plain-spoken Miss Garth, "you would be a trifle
nearer the truth. Ah! you are like all the rest of the girls in the
present day. Not one in a hundred of you knows which end of her's
uppermost."

The three ladies entered the morning-room; and Magdalen acknowledged
Miss Garth's reproof by banging the door.

Half an hour passed, and neither Mr. Vanstone nor his wife left the
breakfast-room. The servant, ignorant of what had happened, went in to
clear the table--found his master and mistress seated close together in
deep consultation--and immediately went out again. Another quarter of an
hour elapsed before the breakfast-room door was opened, and the private
conference of the husband and wife came to an end.

"I hear mamma in the hall," said Norah. "Perhaps she is coming to tell
us something."

Mrs. Vanstone entered the morning-room as her daughter spoke. The