e yapping wool mat of Aunt Aggie's! I simply won't stand
it. I would rather you told her. It would come better from you."

"I will tell her."

Colonel Bellairs was beginning late in life to lean on Magdalen. She
was fond of him in a way, and never yielded to him. _On ne peut
s'appuyer que contre ce qui resiste._ Though Colonel Bellairs did not
know it, he was always wanting to _s'appuyer_. He had found in his
daughter something solid to lean against, which he had never found in
his wife, who had not resisted him.

"Oh! and look here, Magdalen. I had a letter from your Aunt Mary this
morning, a long rigmarole. She says she is following her letter, and is
coming to have a serious talk with me. Hang it all! Can't a man have a
moment's peace?"

Colonel Bellairs tore out of an inner pocket a bulky letter in a bold,
upright hand, marked _Private_, at the top.

"I wish to the devil she would mind her own business, and let me manage
mine," he said pettishly, thrusting the letter at Magdalen.

"I don't like to read it, as it is marked 'Private.'"

"Read it. Read it," said Colonel Bellairs irritably.

Magdalen read the voluminous epistle tranquilly from beginning to end as
she and her father walked slowly back to the house.

It was an able production, built up on a solid foundation. It dealt with
Colonel Bellairs' "obvious duty" with regard to the man to whom Magdalen
had been momentarily engaged fifteen years before, and who, owing to two
deaths in the Boer war, had unexpectedly succeeded to an earldom.

"Well! well!" said Colonel Bellairs at intervals, more interested than
he wished to appear. "What do you think of it? We noticed in the papers
a week ago that he had succeeded his cousin."

"Wait a minute, father. I have only come to my lacerated affections."

"How slow you are! Your Aunt Mary does pound away. She has a touch as
light as a coal-sack. The wonder to me is how she ever captured poor old
Blore."

"Perhaps she did it by letter. She writes uncommonly well. 'Magdalen's
joyless homelife of incessant, unselfish service.' That is very well
put, isn't it? And so is this: 'It is your duty now to inform him that
you withdraw all opposition to the renewal of the engagement, and to
invite him to Priesthope.' Really, Aunt Mary sticks at nothing. I warn
you solemnly, father, this is only the thin end of the wedge. Unless you
stand firm now, she'll want to choose our new stair carpet for us next.
Really, I think at