Up to the last moment, both the sisters had hoped for some explanation of that mysterious “family business” to which Mrs. Vanstone had so briefly alluded on the previous day.  No such explanation had been offered.  Even the agitation of the leave-taking, under circumstances entirely new in the home experience of the parents and children, had not shaken the resolute discretion of Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone.  They had gone—­with the warmest testimonies of affection, with farewell embraces fervently reiterated again and again—­but without dropping one word, from first to last, of the nature of their errand.

As the grating sound of the carriage-wheels ceased suddenly at a turn in the road, the sisters looked one another in the face; each feeling, and each betraying in her own way, the dreary sense that she was openly excluded, for the first time, from the confidence of her parents.  Norah’s customary reserve strengthened into sullen silence—­she sat down in one of the hall chairs and looked out frowningly through the open house door.  Magdalen, as usual when her temper was ruffled, expressed her dissatisfaction in the plainest terms.  “I don’t care who knows it—­I think we are both of us shamefully ill-used!” With those words, the young lady followed her sister’s example by seating herself on a hall chair and looking aimlessly out through the open house door.

Almost at the same moment Miss Garth entered the hall from the morning-room.  Her quick observation showed her the necessity for interfering to some practical purpose; and her ready good sense at once pointed the way.

“Look up, both of you, if you please, and listen to me,” said Miss Garth.  “If we are all three to be comfortable and happy together, now we are alone, we must stick to our usual habits and go on in our regular way.  There is the state of things in plain words.  Accept the situation—­as the French say.  Here am I to set you the example.  I have just ordered an excellent dinner at the customary hour.  I am going to the medicine-chest next, to physic the kitchen-maid—­an unwholesome girl, whose face-ache is all stomach.  In the meantime, Norah, my dear, you will find your work and your books, as usual, in the library.  Magdalen, suppose you leave off tying your handkerchief into knots and use your fingers on the keys of the piano instead?  We’ll lunch at one, and take the dogs out afterward.  Be as brisk and cheerful both of you as I am.  Come, rouse up directly.  If I see those gloomy faces any longer, as sure as my name’s Garth, I’ll give your mother written warning and go back to my friends by the mixed train at twelve forty.”

Concluding her address of expostulation in those terms, Miss Garth led Norah to the library door, pushed Magdalen into the morning-room, and went on her own way sternly to the regions of the medicine-chest.