The meeting took place nearly midway between Sea-view Cottage and North Shingles.  Captain Wragge took off his tall white hat and opened the interview immediately on the friendliest terms.

“Good-morning, Mrs. Lecount,” he said, with the frank and cheerful politeness of a naturally sociable man.  “Good-morning, Mr. Vanstone; I am sorry to see you suffering to-day.  Mrs. Lecount, permit me to introduce my niece—­my niece, Miss Bygrave.  My dear girl, this is Mr. Noel Vanstone, our neighbor at Sea-view Cottage.  We must positively be sociable at Aldborough, Mrs. Lecount.  There is only one walk in the place (as my niece remarked to me just now, Mr. Vanstone); and on that walk we must all meet every time we go out.  And why not?  Are we formal people on either side?  Nothing of the sort; we are just the reverse.  You possess the Continental facility of manner, Mr. Vanstone—­I match you with the blunt cordiality of an old-fashioned Englishman—­the ladies mingle together in harmonious variety, like flowers on the same bed—­and the result is a mutual interest in making our sojourn at the sea-side agreeable to each other.  Pardon my flow of spirits; pardon my feeling so cheerful and so young.  The Iodine in the sea-air, Mrs. Lecount—­the notorious effect of the Iodine in the sea-air!”

“You arrived yesterday, Miss Bygrave, did you not?” said the housekeeper, as soon as the captain’s deluge of language had come to an end.

She addressed those words to Magdalen with a gentle motherly interest in her youth and beauty, chastened by the deferential amiability which became her situation in Noel Vanstone’s household.  Not the faintest token of suspicion or surprise betrayed itself in her face, her voice, or her manner, while she and Magdalen now looked at each other.  It was plain at the outset that the true face and figure which she now saw recalled nothing to her mind of the false face and figure which she had seen in Vauxhall Walk.  The disguise had evidently been complete enough even to baffle the penetration of Mrs. Lecount.

“My aunt and I came here yesterday evening,” said Magdalen.  “We found the latter part of the journey very fatiguing.  I dare say you found it so, too?”

She designedly made her answer longer than was necessary for the purpose of discovering, at the earliest opportunity, the effect which the sound of her voice produced on Mrs. Lecount.

The housekeeper’s thin lips maintained their motherly smile; the housekeeper’s amiable manner lost none of its modest deference, but the expression of her eyes suddenly changed from a look of attention to a look of inquiry.  Magdalen quietly said a few words more, and then waited again for results.  The change spread gradually all over Mrs. Lecount’s face, the motherly smile died away, and the amiable manner betrayed a slight touch of restraint.  Still no signs of positive recognition appeared; the housekeeper’s expression remained what it had been from the first—­an expression of inquiry, and nothing more.