fore the necessary arrangements
connected with his young friend's departure were considered in detail.
"Suppose we all sleep upon it?" he said. "Tomorrow our heads will feel
a little steadier; and to-morrow will be time enough to decide all
uncertainties." This suggestion was readily adopted; and all further
proceedings stood adjourned until the next day.

That next day was destined to decide more uncertainties than Mr.
Vanstone dreamed of.

Early in the morning, after making tea by herself as usual, Miss Garth
took her parasol and strolled into the garden. She had slept ill; and
ten minutes in the open air before the family assembled at breakfast
might help to compensate her, as she thought, for the loss of her
night's rest.

She wandered to the outermost boundary of the flower-garden, and then
returned by another path, which led back, past the side of an ornamental
summer-house commanding a view over the fields from a corner of the
lawn. A slight noise--like, and yet not like, the chirruping of a
bird--caught her ear as she approached the summer-house. She stepped
round to the entrance; looked in; and discovered Magdalen and Frank
seated close together. To Miss Garth's horror, Magdalen's arm was
unmistakably round Frank's neck; and, worse still, the position of her
face, at the moment of discovery, showed beyond all doubt that she
had just been offering to the victim of Chinese commerce the first and
foremost of all the consolations which a woman can bestow on a man. In
plainer words, she had just given Frank a kiss.

In the presence of such an emergency as now confronted her, Miss Gart h
felt instinctively that all ordinary phrases of reproof would be phrases
thrown away.

"I presume," she remarked, addressing Magdalen with the merciless
self-possession of a middle-aged lady, unprovided for the occasion with
any kissing remembrances of her own--"I presume (whatever excuses your
effrontery may suggest) you will not deny that my duty compels me to
mention what I have just seen to your father?"

"I will save you the trouble," replied Magdalen, composedly. "I will
mention it to him myself."

With those words, she looked round at Frank, standing trebly helpless in
a corner of the summer-house. "You shall hear what happens," she said,
with her bright smile. "And so shall you," she added for Miss Garth's
especial benefit, as she sauntered past the governess on her way back
to the breakfast-table. The eyes of Miss