orality by afterward marrying her. Such
conduct as this has called down a Judgment on himself and his children.
I will not invite retribution on my own head by assisting those children
to continue the imposition which their parents practiced, and by helping
them to take a place in the world to which they are not entitled. Let
them, as becomes their birth, gain their bread in situations. If they
show themselves disposed to accept their proper position I will assist
them to start virtuously in life by a present of one hundred pounds
each. This sum I authorize you to pay them, on their personal
application, with the necessary acknowledgment of receipt; and on the
express understanding that the transaction, so completed, is to be the
beginning and the end of my connection with them. The arrangements under
which they quit the house I leave to your discretion; and I have only
to add that my decision on this matter, as on all other matters, is
positive and final."

Line by line--without once looking up from the pages before her
--Magdalen read those atrocious sentences through, from beginning to
end. The other persons assembled in the room, all eagerly looking at her
together, saw the dress rising and falling faster and faster over her
bosom--saw the hand in which she lightly held the manuscript at the
outset close unconsciously on the paper and crush it, as she advanced
nearer and nearer to the end--but detected no other outward signs of
what was passing within her. As soon as she had done, she silently
pushed the manuscript away, and put her hands on a sudden over her
face. When she withdrew them, all the four persons in the room noticed
a change in her. Something in her expression had altered, subtly and
silently; something which made the familiar features suddenly look
strange, even to her sister and Miss Garth; something, through all after
years, never to be forgotten in connection with that day--and never to
be described.

The first words she spoke were addressed to Mr. Pendril.

"May I ask one more favor," she said, "before you enter on your business
arrangements?"

Mr. Pendril replied ceremoniously by a gesture of assent. Magdalen's
resolution to possess herself of the Instructions did not appear to have
produced a favorable impression on the lawyer's mind.

"You mentioned what you were so kind as to do, in our interests, when
you first wrote to Mr. Michael Vanstone," she continued. "You said you
had told him a