Magdalen looked at her in unconcealed astonishment.

“You are so violent,” she said, “and so unlike yourself, that I hardly know you.  The more patient I am, the more hard words I get for my pains.  You have taken a perverse hatred to Frank; and you are unreasonably angry with me because I won’t hate him, too.  Don’t, Norah! you hurt my hand.”

Norah pushed the hand from her contemptuously.  “I shall never hurt your heart,” she said; and suddenly turned her back on Magdalen as she spoke the words.

There was a momentary pause.  Norah kept her position.  Magdalen looked at her perplexedly—­hesitated—­then walked away by herself toward the house.

At the turn in the shrubbery path she stopped and looked back uneasily.  “Oh, dear, dear!” she thought to herself, “why didn’t Frank go when I told him?” She hesitated, and went back a few steps.  “There’s Norah standing on her dignity, as obstinate as ever.”  She stopped again.  “What had I better do?  I hate quarreling:  I think I’ll make up.”  She ventured close to her sister and touched her on the shoulder.  Norah never moved.  “It’s not often she flies into a passion,” thought Magdalen, touching her again; “but when she does, what a time it lasts her!—­Come!” she said, “give me a kiss, Norah, and make it up.  Won’t you let me get at any part of you, my dear, but the back of your neck?  Well, it’s a very nice neck—­it’s better worth kissing than mine—­and there the kiss is, in spite of you!”

She caught fast hold of Norah from behind, and suited the action to the word, with a total disregard of all that had just passed, which her sister was far from emulating.  Hardly a minute since the warm outpouring of Norah’s heart had burst through all obstacles.  Had the icy reserve frozen her up again already!  It was hard to say.  She never spoke; she never changed her position—­she only searched hurriedly for her handkerchief.  As she drew it out, there was a sound of approaching footsteps in the inner recesses of the shrubbery.  A Scotch terrier scampered into view; and a cheerful voice sang the first lines of the glee in “As You Like It.”  “It’s papa!” cried Magdalen.  “Come, Norah—­come and meet him.”

Instead of following her sister, Norah pulled down the veil of her garden hat, turned in the opposite direction, and hurried back to the house.  She ran up to her own room and locked herself in.  She was crying bitterly.

CHAPTER VIII.

WHEN Magdalen and her father met in the shrubbery Mr. Vanstone’s face showed plainly that something had happened to please him since he had left home in the morning.  He answered the question which his daughter’s curiosity at once addressed to him by informing her that he had just come from Mr. Clare’s cottage; and that he had picked up, in that unpromising locality, a startling piece of news for the family at Combe-Raven.

On entering the philosopher’s study that morning, Mr. Vanstone had found him still dawdling over his late breakfast, with an open letter by his side, in place of the book which, on other occasions, lay ready to his hand at meal-times.  He held up the letter the moment his visitor came into the room, and abruptly opened the conversation by asking Mr. Vanstone if his nerves were in good order, and if he felt himself strong enough for the shock of an overwhelming surprise.