pointed the way.

"Look up, both of you, if you please, and listen to me," said Miss
Garth. "If we are all three to be comfortable and happy together, now
we are alone, we must stick to our usual habits and go on in our
regular way. There is the state of things in plain words. Accept the
situation--as the French say. Here am I to set you the example. I have
just ordered an excellent dinner at the customary hour. I am going to
the medicine-chest next, to physic the kitchen-maid--an unwholesome
girl, whose face-ache is all stomach. In the meantime, Norah, my dear,
you will find your work and your books, as usual, in the library.
Magdalen, suppose you leave off tying your handkerchief into knots and
use your fingers on the keys of the piano instead? We'll lunch at one,
and take the dogs out afterward. Be as brisk and cheerful both of you as
I am. Come, rouse up directly. If I see those gloomy faces any longer,
as sure as my name's Garth, I'll give your mother written warning and go
back to my friends by the mixed train at twelve forty."

Concluding her address of expostulation in those terms, Miss Garth led
Norah to the library door, pushed Magdalen into the morning-room, and
went on her own way sternly to the regions of the medicine-chest.

In this half-jesting, half-earnest manner she was accustomed to maintain
a sort of friendly authority over Mr. Vanstone's daughters, after her
proper functions as governess had necessarily come to an end. Norah, it
is needless to say, had long since ceased to be her pupil; and Magdalen
had, by this time, completed her education. But Miss Garth had lived too
long and too intimately under Mr. Vanstone's roof to be parted with for
any purely formal considerations; and the first hint at going away which
she had thought it her duty to drop was dismissed with such affectionate