he position of a new set of toys. "Here's light
reading, printed in pretty colors. Here's all the Things I'm going to
buy when I'm out shopping to-morrow. Lend us a pencil, please--you won't
be angry, will you? I do so want to mark 'em off." She looked up at
Magdalen, chuckled joyfully over her own altered circumstances, and
beat her great hands on the table in irrepressible delight. "No
cookery-book!" cried Mrs. Wragge. "No Buzzing in my head! no captain to
shave to-morrow! I'm all down at heel; my cap's on one side; and nobody
bawls at me. My heart alive, here _is_ a holiday and no mistake!"
Her hands began to drum on the table louder than ever, until Magdalen
quieted them by presenting her with a pencil. Mrs. Wragge instantly
recovered her dignity, squared her elbows on the table, and plunged into
imaginary shopping for the rest of the evening.

Magdalen returned to the window. She took a chair, seated herself
behind the curtain, and steadily fixed her eyes once more on the house
opposite.

The blinds were down over the windows of the first floor and the second.
The window of the room on the ground-floor was uncovered and partly
open, but no living creature came near it. Doors opened, and people came
and went, in the houses on either side; children by the dozen poured out
on the pavement to play, and invaded the little strips of garden-ground
to recover lost balls and shuttlecocks; streams of people passed
backward and forward perpetually; heavy wagons piled high with goods
lumbered along the road on their way to, or their way from, the railway
station near; all the daily life of the district stirred with its
ceaseless activity in every direction but one. The hours passed--and
there was the house opposite still shut up, still void of any signs of
human existence inside or out. The one object which had decided Magdalen
on personally venturing herself in Vauxhall Walk--the object of studying
the looks, manners and habits of Mrs. Lecount and her master from a post
of observation known only to herself--was thus far utterly defeated.
After three hours' watching at the window, she had not even discovered
enough to show her that the house was inhabited at all.

Shortly after six o'clock, the landlady disturbed Mrs. Wragge's studies
by spreading the cloth for dinner. Magdalen placed herself at the table
in a position which still enabled her to command the view from the
window. Nothing happened. The dinner came to an end; M