Permit me to add, in conclusion, you are heartily welcome to
it."
"Thank you, sir," said Mrs. Lecount. "You have unintentionally saddened
me; but the information I have received is not the less precious on that
account. It is long, long ago, Mr. Bygrave, since I have heard myself
addressed in the language of science. My dear husband made me his
companion--my dear husband improved my mind as you have been trying to
improve it. Nobody has taken pains with my intellect since. Many thanks,
sir. Your kind consideration for me is not thrown away."
She sighed with a plaintive humility, and privately opened her ears to
the conversation on the other side of her.
A minute earlier she would have heard her master expressing himself in
the most flattering terms on the subject of Miss Bygrave's appearance in
her sea-side costume. But Magdalen had seen Captain Wragge's signal with
the camp-stool, and had at once diverted Noel Vanstone to the topic of
himself and his possessions by a neatly-timed question about his house
at Aldborough.
"I don't wish to alarm you, Miss Bygrave," were the first words of Noel
Vanstone's which caught Mrs. Lecount's attention, "but there is only one
safe house in Aldborough, and that house is mine.
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