sort of cleverness, but no application and not much taste for
anything but music; and that Paulina was a good, dutiful, plodding
girl, who surpassed brighter powers by dint of diligence. The little
one was a mere child, who had not yet come much under notice from the
higher authorities.

On the whole, Magdalen went away with pleasant hopes, and the
affectionate impulses of kindred blood rising within her, to complete
her term with Lady Milsom, by whom she could not well be spared till
towards Easter; while, in the meantime, her house was being repaired.



CHAPTER II--THE GOYLE



"A poor thing, but mine own."--SHAKESPEARE.

"Thaay stwuns, thaay stwuns, thaay stwuns, thaay stwuns."
--T. HUGHES, Scouring of the White Horse.

Magdalen Prescott stood on her own little terrace. Her house was,
like many Devonian ones, built high on the slope of a steep hill,
running down into a narrow valley, and her abode was almost at the
narrowest part, where a little lively brawling stream descended from
the moor amid rocks and brushwood. If the history of the place were
told, it had been built for a shooting box, then inherited by a
lawyer who had embellished and spent his holidays there, and
afterwards, his youngest daughter, a lonely and retiring woman, had