Engaging to call again on the next day, the servant left the shop, and took the way that led back to Vauxhall Walk.

Magdalen purchased the first trifle she saw on the counter, and hastily returned in the same direction.  The discovery she had just made was of very serious importance to her; and she felt the necessity of acting on it with as little delay as possible.

On entering the front room at the lodgings she found Mrs. Wragge just awake, lost in drowsy bewilderment, with her cap fallen off on her shoulders, and with one of her shoes missing altogether.  Magdalen endeavored to persuade her that she was tired after her journey, and that her wisest proceeding would be to go to bed.  Mrs. Wragge was perfectly willing to profit by this suggestion, provided she could find her shoe first.  In looking for the shoe, she unfortunately discovered the circulars, put by on a side-table, and forthwith recovered her recollection of the earlier proceedings of the evening.

“Give us the pencil,” said Mrs. Wragge, shuffling the circulars in a violent hurry.  “I can’t go to bed yet—­I haven’t half done marking down the things I want.  Let’s see; where did I leave off? Try Finch’s feeding-bottle for Infants. No! there’s a cross against that:  the cross means I don’t want it. Comfort in the Field.  Buckler’s Indestructible Hunting-breeches. Oh dear, dear!  I’ve lost the place.  No, I haven’t.  Here it is; here’s my mark against it. Elegant Cashmere Robes; strictly Oriental, very grand; reduced to one pound nineteen-and-sixpence.  Be in time.  Only three left. Only three!  Oh, do lend us the money, and let’s go and get one!”

“Not to-night,” said Magdalen.  “Suppose you go to bed now, and finish the circulars tomorrow?  I will put them by the bedside for you, and you can go on with them as soon as you wake the first thing in the morning.”

This suggestion met with Mrs. Wragge’s immediate approval.  Magdalen took her into the next room and put her to bed like a child—­with her toys by her side.  The room was so narrow, and the bed was so small; and Mrs. Wragge, arrayed in the white apparel proper for the occasion, with her moon-face framed round by a spacious halo of night-cap, looked so hugely and disproportionately large, that Magdalen, anxious as she was, could not repress a smile on taking leave of her traveling companion for the night.

“Aha!” cried Mrs. Wragge, cheerfully; “we’ll have that Cashmere Robe to-morrow.  Come here!  I want to whisper something to you.  Just you look at me—­I’m going to sleep crooked, and the captain’s not here to bawl at me!”

The front room at the lodgings contained a sofa-bedstead which the landlady arranged betimes for the night.  This done, and the candles brought in, Magdalen was left alone to shape the future course as her own thoughts counseled her.