No Name by Wilkie Collins
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page 13 of 938 (01%)
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On her entry into the breakfast-room, she was saluted with the customary remonstrance which her flighty disregard of all punctuality habitually provoked from the long-suffering household authorities. In Miss Garth's favorite phrase, "Magdalen was born with all the senses--except a sense of order." Magdalen! It was a strange name to have given her? Strange, indeed; and yet, chosen under no extraordinary circumstances. The name had been borne by one of Mr. Vanstone's sisters, who had died in early youth; and, in affectionate remembrance of her, he had called his second daughter by it--just as he had called his eldest daughter Norah, for his wife's sake. Magdalen! Surely, the grand old Bible name--suggestive of a sad and somber dignity; recalling, in its first association, mournful ideas of penitence and seclusion--had been here, as events had turned out, inappropriately bestowed? Surely, this self-contradictory girl had perversely accomplished one contradiction more, by developing into a character which was out of all harmony with her own Christian name! "Late again!" said Mrs. Vanstone, as Magdalen breathlessly kissed her. "Late again!" chimed in Miss Garth, when Magdalen came her way next. "Well?" she went on, taking the girl's chin familiarly in her hand, with a half-satirical, half-fond attention which betrayed that the youngest daughter, with all her faults, was the governess's favorite--"Well? and what has the concert done for _you?_ What form of suffering has dissipation inflicted on _your_ system this morning?" "Suffering!" repeated Magdalen, recovering her breath, and the use of |
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