breakfast-table
with both hands full, and delivered the letters all round with the
business-like rapidity of a London postman.

"Two for Norah," she announced, beginning with her sister. "Three for
Miss Garth. None for mamma. One for me. And the other six all for papa.
You lazy old darling, you hate answering letters, don't you?" pursued
Magdalen, dropping the postman's character and assuming the daughter's.
"How you will grumble and fidget in the study! and how you will wish
there were no such things as letters in the world! and how red your nice
old bald head will get at the top with the worry of writing the answers;
and how many of the answers you will leave until tomorrow after all!
_The Bristol Theater's open, papa,_" she whispered, slyly and suddenly,
in her father's ear; "I saw it in the newspaper when I went to the
library to get the key. Let's go to-morrow night!"

While his daughter was chattering, Mr. Vanstone was mechanically sorting
his letters. He turned over the first four in succession and looked
carelessly at the addresses. When he came to the fifth his attention,
which had hitherto wandered toward Magdalen, suddenly became fixed on
the post-mark of the letter.

Stooping over him, with her head on his shoulder, Magdalen could see the
post-mark as plainly as her father saw it--NEW ORLEANS.

"An American letter, papa!" she said. "Who do you know at New Orleans?"

Mrs. Vanstone started, and looked eagerly at her husband the moment
Magdalen spoke those words.

Mr. Vanstone said nothing. He quietly removed his daughter's arm
from his neck, as if he wished to be free from all interruption. She
returned, accordingly, to her place at the breakfast-table. Her father,
with the letter in his hand, waited a little before he opened it; her
mother looking at him, the while, with an eager, expectant attention
which attracted Miss Garth's notice, and Norah's, as well as Magdalen's.

After a minute or more of hesitation Mr. Vanstone opened the letter.

His face changed color the instant he read the first lines; his cheeks
fading to a dull, yellow-brown hue, which would have been ashy
paleness in a less florid man; and his expression becoming saddened and
overclouded in a moment. Norah and Magdalen, watching anxiously, saw
nothing but the change that passed over their father. Miss Garth alone
observed the effect which that change produced on the attentive mistress
of the house.

It was not the effect which she,