ns, of a cat having her back
stroked, and that he always expected, if the combing were only continued
long enough, to hear her _purr_. Extravagant as it may seem, the
comparison was not altogether inappropriate. The girl's fervid
temperament intensified the essentially feminine pleasure that most
women feel in the passage of the comb through their hair, to a
luxury of sensation which absorbed her in enjoyment, so serenely
self-demonstrative, so drowsily deep that it did irresistibly suggest a
pet cat's enjoyment under a caressing hand. Intimately as Miss Garth was
acquainted with this peculiarity in her pupil, she now saw it asserting
itself for the first time, in association with mental exertion of any
kind on Magdalen's part. Feeling, therefore, some curiosity to know how
long the combing and the studying had gone on together, she ventured on
putting the question, first to the mistress; and (receiving no answer in
that quarter) secondly to the maid.

"All the afternoon, miss, off and on," was the weary answer. "Miss
Magdalen says it soothes her feelings and clears her mind."

Knowing by experience that interference would be hopeless, under these
circumstances, Miss Garth turned sharply and left the room. She
smiled when she was outside on the landing. The female mind does
occasionally--though not often--project itself into the future. Miss
Garth was prophetically pitying Magdalen's unfortunate husband.

Dinner-time presented the fair student to the family eye in the same
mentally absorbed aspect. On all ordinary occasions Magdalen's appetite
would have terrified those feeble sentimentalists who affect to
ignore the all-important influence which female feeding exerts in the
production of female beauty. On this occasion she refused one dish
after another with a resolution which implied the rarest of all modern
martyrdoms--gastric martyrdom. "I have conceived the part of Lucy," she
observed, with the demurest gravity. "The next difficulty is to make
Frank conceive the part of Falkland. I see nothing to laugh at--you
would all be serious enough if you had my responsibilities. No, papa--no
wine to-day, thank you. I must keep my intelligence clear. Water,
Thomas--and a little more jelly, I think, before you take it away."

When Frank presented himself in the evening, ignorant of the
first elements of his part, she took him in hand, as a middle-aged
schoolmistress might have taken in hand a backward little boy. The few
a