POPULAR NOVELS.

                       _By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes._


                      I.— TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE.
                     II.— ENGLISH ORPHANS.
                    III.— HOMESTEAD ON THE HILLSIDE.
                     IV.— LENA RIVERS.
                      V.— MEADOW BROOK.
                     VI.— DORA DEANE.
                    VII.— COUSIN MAUDE.
                   VIII.— MARIAN GRAY.
                     IX.— DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT.
                      X.— HUGH WORTHINGTON.
                     XI.— CAMERON PRIDE.
                    XII.— ROSE MATHER.
                   XIII.— ETHELYN’S MISTAKE.
                    XIV.— MILLBANK.
                     XV.— EDNA BROWNING. (_New._)

 Mrs. Holmes is a peculiarly pleasant and fascinating writer. Her books
 are always entertaining, and she has the rare faculty of enlisting the
 sympathy and affections of her readers, and of holding their attention
             to her pages with deep and absorbing interest.


   All published uniform with this volume. Price $1.50 each, and sent
                 _free_ by mail, on receipt of price by

                         G. W. CARLETON & CO.,
                               New York.




                               MILLBANK;
                                  OR,
                          ROGER IRVING’S WARD.
                                A NOVEL.


                                   BY

                          MRS. MARY J. HOLMES,

                               AUTHOR OF

 TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE.—’LENA RIVERS.—MARIAN GREY.—MEADOWBROOK.—ENGLISH
       ORPHANS.—COUSIN MAUDE.—HOMESTEAD.—DORA DEANE.—DARKNESS AND
 DAYLIGHT.—HUGH WORTHINGTON.—THE CAMERON PRIDE.—ROSE MATHER.—ETHELYN’S
                           MISTAKE.—ETC.—ETC.

[Illustration]

                               NEW YORK:
                   _G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers_
                       LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO.
                             M.DCCC.LXXII.




       Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by
                             DANIEL HOLMES,
       In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.




                                   TO
                       GEORGE W. CARLETON, ESQ.,
                     [WHOM I ESTEEM SO HIGHLY AS A
                    PERSONAL FRIEND AND PUBLISHER,]
                               I DEDICATE
                        THIS STORY OF MILLBANK.

 _Brown Cottage, Brockport, N. Y.,
         April, 1871._




                               CONTENTS.


       CHAPTER                                               PAGE
            I. EXPECTING ROGER                                  9
           II. ROGER’S STORY                                   19
          III. WHAT THEY DID AT MILLBANK                       27
           IV. THE MORNING OF THE FUNERAL                      33
            V. THE FUNERAL                                     41
           VI. THE EVENING AFTER THE FUNERAL                   45
          VII. MILLBANK AFTER THE DAY OF THE FUNERAL           55
         VIII. THE STRANGER IN BELVIDERE                       59
           IX. A STIR AT MILLBANK                              67
            X. FRANK AT MILLBANK                               74
           XI. ROGER’S LETTERS AND THE RESULT                  85
          XII. ALICE GREY                                      92
         XIII. A RETROSPECT                                   104
          XIV. IN THE EVENING                                 108
           XV. ROGER AND FRANK                                110
          XVI. LIFE AT MILLBANK                               117
         XVII. LOVE-MAKING AT MILLBANK                        130
        XVIII. THE LOOSE BOARD IN THE GARRET                  138
          XIX. THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLE                       146
           XX. WHAT MAGDALEN FOUND IN THE GARRET              156
          XXI. FRANK AND THE WILL                             162
         XXII. MRS. WALTER SCOTT AND THE WILL                 172
        XXIII. ROGER AND THE WILL                             178
         XXIV. HESTER AND THE WILL                            186
          XXV. MAGDALEN AND ROGER                             198
         XXVI. ‘SQUIRE IRVING’S LETTER                        204
        XXVII. JESSIE’S LETTER                                208
       XXVIII. THE WORLD AND THE WILL                         216
         XXIX. POOR MAGDA                                     223
          XXX. LEAVING MILLBANK                               227
         XXXI. THE HOME IN SCHODICK                           236
        XXXII. MAGDALEN’S DECISION                            241
       XXXIII. THE BEGINNING OF THE END                       250
        XXXIV. MRS. PENELOPE SEYMOUR                          253
         XXXV. ALICE AND MAGDALEN                             262
        XXXVI. MR. GREY AND MAGDALEN                          265
       XXXVII. LIFE AT BEECHWOOD                              273
      XXXVIII. THE MYSTERY AT BEECHWOOD                       280
        XXXIX. MAGDALEN AND THE MYSTERY                       284
           XL. A GLIMMER OF LIGHT                             293
          XLI. MRS. SEYMOUR AND MAGDALEN                      298
         XLII. IN CINCINNATI                                  308
        XLIII. IN CYNTHIANA                                   314
         XLIV. FATHER AND DAUGHTER                            320
          XLV. AT BEECHWOOD                                   325
         XLVI. THE CLOUDS BREAK OVER BEECHWOOD                333
        XLVII. BELL BURLEIGH                                  337
       XLVIII. THE WEDDING, AND HESTER FLOYD’S ACCOUNT OF IT  345
         XLIX. HOW THEY LIVED AT MILLBANK                     354
            L. ROGER                                          362
           LI. MAGDALEN IS COMING HOME                        369
          LII. MILLBANK IS SOLD AT AUCTION                    373
         LIII. MAGDALEN AT ROGER’S HOME                       378
          LIV. ROGER AND MAGDALEN                             382
           LV. MILLBANK IS CLEAR OF ITS OLD TENANTS           388
          LVI. THE BRIDAL                                     391
         LVII. CHRISTMAS-TIDE                                 395




                               MILLBANK;

                                  OR,

                          ROGER IRVING’S WARD.




                               CHAPTER I.
                            EXPECTING ROGER.


Every window and shutter at Millbank was closed. Knots of crape were
streaming from the bell-knobs, and all around the house there was that
deep hush which only the presence of death can inspire. Indoors there
was a kind of twilight gloom pervading the rooms, and the servants spoke
in whispers whenever they came near the chamber where the old squire lay
in his handsome coffin, waiting the arrival of Roger, who had been in
St. Louis when his father died, and who was expected home on the night
when our story opens. Squire Irving had died suddenly in the act of
writing to his boy Roger, and when found by old Aleck, his hand was
grasping the pen, and his head was resting on the letter he would never
finish. “Heart disease” was the verdict of the inquest, and then the
electric wires carried the news of his decease to Roger, and to the
widow of the squire’s eldest son, who lived on Lexington avenue, New
York, and who always called herself Mrs. Walter Scott Irving, fancying
that in some way the united names of two so illustrious authors as
Irving and Scott shed a kind of literary halo upon one who bore them.

Mrs. Walter Scott Irving had been breakfasting in her back parlor when
the news came to her of her father-in-law’s sudden death, and to say
that she was both astonished and shocked, is only to do her justice, but
to insinuate that she was sorry, is quite another thing. She was not
sorry, though her smooth white brow contracted into wrinkles, and she
tried to speak very sadly and sorrowfully as she said to her son Frank,
a boy of nine or more,—

“Frank, your grandfather is dead; poor man, you’ll never see him again.”

Frank _was_ sorry. The happiest days of his life had been spent at
Millbank. He liked the house, and the handsome grounds, with the grand
old woods in the rear, and the river beyond, where in a little sheltered
nook lay moored the boat he called his own. He liked the spotted pony
which he always rode. He liked the freedom from restraint which he found
in the country, and he liked the old man who was so kind to him, and who
petted him sometimes when Roger was not by. Roger had been absent on the
occasion of Frank’s last visit to Millbank, and his grandfather had
taken more than usual notice of him,—had asked him many questions as to
what he meant to be when he grew to manhood, and what he would do,
supposing he should some day be worth a great deal of money. Would he
keep it, or would he spend it as fast and as foolishly as his father had
spent the portion allotted to him?

“You’d keep it, wouldn’t you, and put it at interest?” his mother had
said, laying her hand upon his hair with a motion which she meant should
convey some suggestion or idea to his mind.

But Frank had few ideas of his own. He never took hints or suggestions,
and boy-like he answered:

“I’d buy a lot of horses, and Roger and me would set up a circus out in
the park.”

It was an unlucky answer, for the love of fast horses had been the ruin
of Frank’s father, but the mention of Roger went far toward softening
the old man. Frank had thought of Roger at once; he would be generous
with him, let what would happen, and the frown which the mention of
horses had brought to the squire’s face cleared away as he said:

“Hang your horses, boy; keep clear of them as you would shun the
small-pox, but be fair and just with Roger; poor Roger, I doubt if I did
right.”

This speech had been followed by the squire’s going hastily out upon the
terrace, where, with his hands behind him and his head bent forward, he
had walked for more than an hour, while Mrs. Walter Scott peered
anxiously at him from time to time, and seemed a good deal disturbed.
They had returned to the city the next day, and Frank had noticed some
changes in their style of living. Another servant was added to their
establishment; they had more dishes at dinner, while his mother went
oftener to the opera and Stewart’s. Now, his grandfather was dead, and
she sat there looking at him across the table as the tears gathered in
his eyes, and when he stammered out, “We shall never go to Millbank any
more,” she said soothingly to him, “We may live there altogether. Would
you like it?”

He did not comprehend her clearly, but the thought that his
grandfather’s death did not necessarily mean banishment from Millbank
helped to dry his eyes, and he began to whistle merrily at the prospect
of going there at once, for they were to start that very day on the
three-o’clock train. “It was better to be on the ground as soon as
possible,” Mrs. Walter Scott reflected, and after a visit to her
dressmaker, who promised that the deepest of mourning suits should
follow her, she started with Frank for Millbank.

Mrs. Walter Scott Irving had never been a favorite at Millbank since her
husband had taken her there as a bride, and she had given mortal offence
to the two real heads of the household, Aleck and Hester Floyd, by
putting on all sorts of airs, snubbing little Roger, and speaking of his
mother as “that low creature, whose disgraceful conduct could never be
excused.” Hester Floyd, to whom this was said, could have forgiven the
airs; indeed, she rather looked upon them as belonging by right to one
who was so fortunate as to marry into the Irving family. But when it
came to slighting little Roger for his mother’s error, and to speaking
of that mother as a “low creature,” Hester’s hot blood was roused, and
there commenced at once a quiet, unspoken warfare, which had never
ceased, between herself and the offending Mrs. Walter Scott. Hester was
as much a part of Millbank as the stately old trees in the park, a few
of which she had helped Aleck to plant when she was a girl of eighteen
and he a boy of twenty. She had lived at Millbank more than thirty
years. She had come there when the first Mrs. Irving was a bride. She
had carried Walter Scott to be christened. She had been his nurse, and
slapped him with her shoe a dozen times. She had been married to Aleck
in her mistress’s dining-room. She had seen the old house torn down, and
a much larger, handsomer one built in its place; and then, just after it
was completed, she had followed her mistress to the grave, and shut up
the many beautiful rooms which were no longer of any use. Two years
passed, and then her master electrified her one day with the news that
he was about bringing a second bride to Millbank, a girl younger than
his son Walter, and against whom Hester set herself fiercely as against
an usurper of her rights. But when the sweet, pale-faced Jessie Morton
came, with her great, sad blue eyes, and her curls of golden hair,
Hester’s resentment began to give way, for she could not harbor malice
toward a creature so lovely, so gentle, and so sad withal: and after an
interview in the bed-chamber, when poor Jessie threw herself with a
passionate cry into Hester’s arms, and sobbed piteously, “Be kind to me,
won’t you? Be my friend. I have none in all the world, or I should not
be here. I did not want to come,”—she became her strongest ally, and
proved that Jessie’s confidence had not been misplaced. There had come a
dark, dark day for Millbank since then, and Jessie’s picture, painted in
full dress, with pearls on her beautiful neck and arms, and in her
golden hair, had been taken from the parlor-wall and banished to the
garret; and Jessie’s name was never spoken by the master, either to his
servants or his little boy Roger, who had a dash of gold in his brown
hair, and a look in his dark-blue eyes, like that which Jessie’s used to
wear, when, in the long evenings before his birth, she sat with folded
hands gazing into the blazing fire, as if trying to solve the dark
mystery of her life, and know why her lot had been cast there at
Millbank with the old man, whom she did not hate, but whom she could not
love. There was a night, too, which Hester never forgot,—a night when,
with nervous agony depicted in every lineament, Jessie made her swear
that, come what might, she would never desert or cease to love the boy
Roger, sleeping so quietly in his little crib. She was to care for him
as if he were her own; to consider his interest before that of any
other, and bring him up a good and noble man. That was what Jessie
asked, and what Hester swore to do; and then followed swiftly terror and
darkness and disgrace, and close upon their footsteps came retribution,
and Jessie’s golden head was lying far beneath the sea off Hatteras’s
storm-beaten shore, and Jessie’s name was rarely heard. But Hester kept
her vow, and since the dreadful morning when Jessie did not answer to
the breakfast call, and Jessie’s room was vacant, Roger had never wanted
for a mother’s care. Hester had no children of her own, and she took him
instead, petting and caring for, and scolding him as he deserved, and
through all, loving him with a brooding, clinging, unselfish love, which
would stop at nothing which she could make herself believe was right for
her to do in his behalf. And so, when the young bride looked coldly upon
him and spoke slightingly of his mother, Hester declared battle at once;
and the hatchet had never been buried, for Mrs. Walter Scott, in her
frequent visits to Millbank, had only deepened Hester’s first
impressions of her.

“A proud, stuck-up person, with no kind of reason for bein’ so except
that she married one of the Irvingses,” was what Hester said of her, and
this opinion was warmly seconded by Aleck, who always thought just as
Hester did.

Had she been Eve, and he her Adam, he would have eaten the forbidden
fruit without a question as to his right to do so, just because she gave
it to him, but, unlike Adam, he would not have charged the fault to her;
he would have taken it upon himself, as if the idea and the act had been
his alone.

For Frank there was more toleration at Millbank. “He was not very
bright,” Hester said; “but how could he be with such a mother? Little
pimpin’, spindlin’, white-haired critter, there wasn’t half so much snap
to him as there was to Roger.”

In this condition of things it was hardly to be supposed that Mrs.
Walter Scott’s reception at Millbank was very cordial, when, on the
evening after the squire’s death, the village hack deposited her at the
door. Mrs. Walter Scott did not like a depot hack, it brought her so
much on a level with common people; and her first words to Hester were:

“Why wasn’t the carriage sent for us? Weren’t we expected?”

There was an added air of importance in her manner, and she spoke like
one whose right it was to command there; and Hester detected it at once.
But in her manner there was, if possible, less of deference than she had
usually paid to the great lady.

“Aleck had the neurology, and we didn’t know jestly when you’d come,”
was her reply, as she led the way to the chamber which Mrs. Walter Scott
had been accustomed to occupy during her visits to Millbank.

“I think I’ll have a fire, the night is so chilly,” the lady said, with
a shiver, as she glanced at the empty grate. “And, Hester, you may send
my tea after the fire is made. I have a headache, and am too tired to go
down.”

There was in all she said a tone and air which seemed to imply that she
was now the mistress; and, in truth, Mrs. Walter Scott did so consider
herself, or rather, as a kind of queen-regent who, for as many years as
must elapse ere Frank became of age, would reign supreme at Millbank.
And after the fire was lighted in her room, and her cup of tea was
brought to her, with toast, and jelly, and cold chicken, she was
thinking more of the changes she would make in the old place, than of
the white, motionless figure which lay, just across the hall, in a room
much like her own. She had not seen this figure yet. She did not wish to
carry the image of death to her pillow, and so she waited till morning,
when, after breakfast was over, she went with Hester to the darkened
room, and with her handkerchief ostensibly pressed to her eyes, but
really held to her nose, she stood a moment by the dead, and sighed:

“Poor, dear old man! How sudden it was; and what a lesson it should
teach us all of the mutability of life, for in an hour when we think
not, death cometh upon us!”

Mrs. Walter Scott felt that some such speech was due from her,—something
which savored of piety, and which might possibly do good to the angular,
square-shouldered, flat-waisted woman at her side, who understood what
_mutability_ meant quite as well as she would have understood so much
Hebrew. But she knew the lady was “putting on;” that, in her heart, she
was glad the “poor old man” was dead; and with a jerk she drew the
covering over the pinched white face, dropped the curtain which had been
raised to admit the light, and then opened the door and stood waiting
for the lady to pass out.

“I shall dismiss that woman the very first good opportunity. She has
been here too long to come quietly under a new administration,” Mrs.
Walter Scott thought, as she went slowly down the stairs, and through
the lower rooms, deciding, at a glance, that this piece of furniture
should be banished to the garret, and that piece transferred to some
more suitable place. “The old man has lived here alone so long, that
everything bears the unmistakable stamp of a bachelor’s hall; but I
shall soon remedy that. I’ll have a man from the city whose taste I can
trust,” she said; by which it will be seen that Mrs. Walter Scott fully
expected to reign triumphant at Millbank, without a thought or
consideration for Roger, the dead man’s idol, who, according to all
natural laws, had a far better right there than herself.

She had never fancied Roger, because she felt that through him her
husband would lose a part of his father’s fortune, and as he grew older
and she saw how superior he was to Frank, she disliked him more and
more, though she tried to conceal her dislike from her husband, who,
during his lifetime, evinced almost as much affection for his young half
brother as for his own son. Walter Scott Irving had been a spendthrift,
and the fifty thousand dollars which his father gave him at his marriage
had melted away like dew in the morning sun, until he had barely enough
to subsist upon. Then ten thousand more had been given him, with the
understanding that this was all he was ever to receive. The rest was for
Roger, the father said; and Walter acquiesced, and admitted that it was
right. He had had his education with sixty thousand beside, and he could
not ask for more. A few weeks after this he died suddenly of a
prevailing fever, and then, softened by his son’s death, the old man
added to the ten thousand and bought the house on Lexington avenue, and
deeded it to Mrs. Walter Scott herself. Since that time fortunate
speculations had made Squire Irving a richer man than he was before the
first gift to his son, and Mrs. Walter Scott had naturally thought it
very hard that Frank was not to share in this increase of wealth. But no
such thoughts were troubling her now, and her face wore a very satisfied
look of resignation and submission as she moved languidly around the
house and grounds in the morning, and then in the afternoon dressed
herself in her heavy, trailing silk, and throwing around her graceful
shoulders a scarlet shawl, went down to receive the calls and
condolences of the rector’s wife and Mrs. Colonel Johnson, who came in
to see her. She did not tell them she expected to be their neighbor a
portion of the year, and when they spoke of Roger, she looked very
sorry, and sighed: “Poor boy, it will be a great shock to him.”

Then, when the ladies suggested that he would undoubtedly have a great
deal of property left to him, and wondered who his guardian would be,
she said “she did not know. Lawyer Schofield, perhaps, as he had done
the most of Squire Irving’s business.”

“But Lawyer Schofield is dead. He died three weeks ago,” the ladies
said; and Mrs. Walter Scott’s cheek for a moment turned pale as she
expressed her surprise at the news, and wondered she had not heard of
it.

Then the conversation drifted back to Roger, who was expected the next
night, and for whom the funeral was delayed.

“I always liked Roger,” Mrs. Johnson said; “and I must say I loved his
mother, in spite of her faults. She was a lovely creature, and it seems
a thousand pities that she should have married so old a man as Squire
Irving when she loved another so much.”

Mrs. Walter Scott said it was a pity,—said she always disapproved of
unequal matches,—said she had not the honor of the lady’s acquaintance,
and then bowed her visitors out with her loftiest air, and went back to
the parlor, and wondered what people would say when they knew what she
did. She would be very kind to Roger, she thought. Her standing in
Belvidere depended upon that, and he should have a home at Millbank
until he was of age, when, with the legacy left to him, he could do very
well for himself. She wished the servants did not think quite so much of
him as they did, especially Aleck and Hester Floyd, who talked of
nothing except that “Master Roger was coming to-morrow.” Her mourning
was coming, too; and when the next day it came, she arrayed herself in
the heavy bombazine, with the white crape band at the throat and wrists,
which relieved the sombreness of her attire. She was dressing for Roger,
she said, thinking it better to evince some interest in an event which
was occupying so much of the servants’ thoughts.

The day was a damp, chilly one in mid-April, and so a fire was kindled
in Roger’s room, and flowers were put there, and the easy chair from the
hall library; and Hester went in and out and arranged and re-arranged
the furniture, and then flitted to the kitchen, where the pies and
puddings which Roger loved were baking, and where Jeruah, or “Ruey,” as
she was called was beating the eggs for Roger’s favorite cake. He would
be there about nine o’clock, she knew, for she had received a telegram
from Albany, saying, “Shall be home at nine. Meet me at the depot
without fail.”

In a great flurry Hester read the dispatch, wondering why she was to
meet him without fail, and finally deciding that the affectionate boy
could not wait till he reached home before pouring out his tears and
grief on her motherly bosom.

“Poor child! I presume he’ll cry fit to bust when he sees me,” she said
to Mrs. Walter Scott, who looked with a kind of scorn upon the
preparations for the supposed heir of Millbank.

The night set in with a driving rain, and the wind moaned dismally as it
swept past the house where the dead rested so quietly, and where the
living were so busy and excited. At half-past eight the carriage came
round, and Aleck in his waterproof coat held the umbrella over Hester’s
head as she walked to the carriage, with one shawl wrapped around her
and another on her arm. Why she took that second shawl she did not then
know, but afterward, in recounting the particulars of that night’s
adventures, she said it was just a special Providence and nothing else
which put it into her head to take an extra shawl, and that a big warm
one. Half an hour passed, and then above the storm Mrs. Walter Scott
heard the whistle which announced the arrival of the train. Then twenty
minutes went by, and Frank, who was watching by the window, screamed
out:

“They are coming, mother. I see the lights of the carriage.”

If it had not been raining, Mrs. Walter Scott would have gone to the
door, but the damp air was sure to take the curl from her hair, and Mrs.
Walter Scott thought a great deal of the heavy ringlets which fell about
her face by day and were tightly rolled in papers at night. So she only
went as far as the parlor door, where she stood holding together the
scarf she had thrown around her shoulders. There seemed to be some delay
at the carriage, and the voices speaking together there were low and
excited.

“No, Hester; she is mine. She shall go in the front way,” Roger was
heard to say; and a moment after Hester Floyd came hurriedly into the
hall, holding something under her shawl which looked to Mrs. Walter
Scott like a package or roll of cloth.

Following Hester was Frank, who, having no curls to spoil, had rushed
out in the rain to meet his little uncle, of whom he had always been so
fond.

“Oh, mother, mother!” he exclaimed. “What do you think Roger has brought
home? Something which he found in the cars where a wicked woman left it.
Oh, ain’t it so funny,—Roger bringing a baby?” and having thus thrown
the bomb-shell at his mother’s feet, Frank darted after Hester, and poor
Roger was left alone to make his explanations to his dreaded
sister-in-law.




                              CHAPTER II.
                             ROGER’S STORY.


Hester’s advent into the kitchen was followed by a great commotion, and
Ruey forgot to pour any water upon the tea designed for Roger, but set
the pot upon the hot stove, where it soon began to melt with the heat.
But neither Hester nor Ruey heeded it, so absorbed were they in the
little bundle which the former had laid upon the table, and which showed
unmistakable signs of life and vigorous babyhood by kicking at the shawl
which enveloped it, and thrusting out two little fat, dimpled fists,
which beat the air as the child began to scream lustily and try to free
itself from its wrappings.

“The Lord have mercy on us! what have you got?” Ruey exclaimed, while
Hester, with a pale face and compressed lip, replied:

“A brat that some vile woman in the cars asked Roger to hold while she
got out at a station. Of course she didn’t go back, and so, fool-like,
he brought it home, because it was pretty, he said, and he felt so sorry
for it. I always knew he had a soft spot, but I didn’t think it would
show itself this way.”

It was the first time Hester had ever breathed a word of complaint
against the boy Roger, whose kindness of heart and great fondness for
children were proverbial; and now, sorry that she had done so, she tried
to make amends by taking the struggling child from the table and freeing
it from the shawl which she had carried with her to the depot, never
guessing the purpose to which it would be applied. It was a very pretty,
fat-faced baby, apparently nine or ten months old, and the hazel eyes
were bright as buttons, Ruey said, her heart warming at once toward the
little stranger, at whom Hester looked askance. There was a heavy growth
of dark brown hair upon the head, with just enough curl in it to make it
lie in rings about the forehead and neck. The clothes, though soiled by
travelling, were neatly made, and showed marks of pains and care; while
about the neck was a fine gold chain, to which was attached a tiny
locket, with the initials “L. G.” engraved upon it. These things came
out one by one as Hester and Ruey together examined the child, which did
not evince the least fear of them, but which, when Ruey stroked its
cheek caressingly, looked up in her face with a coaxing, cooing noise,
and stretched its arms toward her.

“Little darling,” the motherly girl exclaimed, taking it at once from
Hester’s lap and hugging it to her bosom. “I’m so glad it is here,—the
house will be as merry again with a baby in it.”

“Do you think Roger will keep it? You must be crazy,” Hester said
sharply, when Frank, who had divided his time between the parlor and
kitchen, and who had just come from the former, chimed in:

“Yes, he will,—he told mother so. He said he always wanted a sister, and
he should keep her, and mother’s rowin’ him for it.”

By this it will be seen that the child was the topic of conversation in
the parlor as well as kitchen, Mrs. Walter Scott asking numberless
questions, and Roger explaining as far as was possible what was to
himself a mystery. A young woman, carrying a baby in her arms, and
looking very tired and frightened, had come into the car at Cincinnati,
he said, and asked to sit with him. She was a pretty, dark-faced woman,
with bright black eyes, which seemed to look right through one, and
which examined him very sharply. She did not talk much to him, but
appeared to be wrapped in thoughts which must have been very amusing, as
she would occasionally laugh quietly to herself, and then relapse into
an abstracted mood. Roger thought now that she seemed a little strange,
though at the time he had no suspicions of her, and was very kind to the
baby, whom she asked him to hold. He was exceedingly fond of children,
especially little girls, and he took this one readily, and fed it with
candy, with which his pockets were always filled. In this way they
travelled until it began to grow dark and they stopped at ——, a town
fifty miles or more from Cincinnati. Here the woman asked him to look
after her baby a few moments while she went into the next car, to see a
friend.

“If she gets hungry, give her some milk,” she added, taking a bottle
from the little basket which she had with her under the seat.

Without the slightest hesitation Roger consented to play the part of
nurse to the little girl, who was sleeping at the time, and whom the
mother, if mother she were, had lain upon the unoccupied seat in front.
Bending close to the round, flushed face, the woman whispered something;
then, with a kiss upon the lips, as if in benediction, she went out, and
Roger saw her no more. He did not notice whether she went into another
car or left the train entirely. He only knew that a half hour passed and
she did not return; then another half hour went by; and some passengers
claimed one of the seats occupied by him and his charge. In lifting the
child he woke her, but instead of crying, she rubbed her pretty eyes
with her little fists, and then, with a smile, laid her head confidingly
against his bosom and was soon sleeping again. So long as she remained
quiet, Roger felt no special uneasiness about the mother’s protracted
absence, which had now lengthened into nearly two hours; but when at
last the child began to cry, and neither candy, nor milk, nor pounding
on the car window, nor his lead pencil, nor his jack-knife, nor watch
had any effect upon her, he began to grow very anxious, and to the woman
in front who asked rather sharply, “what was the matter, and what he was
doing with that child alone,” he said,—

“I am taking care of her while her mother sees a friend in the next car.
I wish she would come back. She’s been gone ever so long.”

The cries were screams by this time,—loud, passionate screams, which
indicated great strength of lungs, and roused up the drowsy passengers,
who began, some of them, to grumble, while one suggested “pitching the
brat out of the window.”

With his face very red, and the perspiration starting out about his
mouth, Roger arose, and tried, by walking up and down the aisle, to hush
the little one into quiet. Once he thought of going into the next car in
quest of the missing mother,—then, thinking to himself that she surely
would return ere long, he abandoned the idea, and resumed his seat with
the now quiet child. And so another hour went by, and they were nearly a
hundred miles from the place where the woman had left him. Had Roger
been older, a suspicion of foul play would have come to him long before
this; but, the soul of honor himself, he believed in everybody else, and
not a doubt crossed his mind that anything was wrong until the woman who
had first spoken to him began to question him again, and ask if it was
his sister he was caring for so kindly. Then the story came out, and
Roger felt as if smothering, when the woman exclaimed, “Why, boy, the
child has been deserted. It is left on your hands. The mother will never
come to claim it.”

For an instant the car and everything in it turned dark to poor Roger,
who gasped, “You must be mistaken. She is in the next car, sure. Hold
the baby, and I’ll find her.”

There was a moment’s hesitancy on the part of the woman,—a fear lest
she, too, might be duped; but another look at the boy’s frank, ingenuous
face, reassured her. There was no evil in those clear, blue eyes which
met hers so imploringly, and she took the child in her arms, while he
went for the missing mother,—went through the adjoining car and the
next,—peering anxiously into every face, but not finding the one he
sought. Then he came back, and went through the rear car, but all in
vain. The dark-faced woman with the glittering eyes and strange smile,
was gone! The baby was deserted and left on Roger’s hands. He understood
it perfectly, and the understanding seemed suddenly to add years of
discretion and experience to him. Slowly he went back to the waiting
woman, and without a word took the child from her, and letting his
boyish face drop over it, he whispered, “Your mother has abandoned you,
little one, but I will care for you.”

He was adopting the poor forsaken child,—was accepting his awkward
situation, and when that was done he reported his success. There was an
ejaculation of horror and surprise on the woman’s part; a quick rising
up from her seat to “do something,” or “tell somebody” of the terrible
thing which had transpired before their very eyes. There was a great
excitement now in the car, and the passengers crowded around the boy,
who told them all he knew, and then to their suggestions as to ways and
means of finding the unnatural parent, quietly replied, “I shan’t try to
find her. She could not be what she ought, and the baby is better
without her.”

“But what can you do with a baby,” a chorus of voices asked; and Roger
replied with the air of twenty-five rather than fourteen, “I have money.
I can see that she is taken care of.”

“The beginning of a very pretty little romance,” one of the younger
ladies said, and then, as the conductor appeared, he was pounced upon
and the story told to him, and suggestions made that he should stop the
train, or telegraph back, or do something.

“What shall I stop the train for, and whom shall I telegraph to?” he
asked. “It is a plain case of desertion, and the mother is miles and
miles away from —— by this time. There would be no such thing as tracing
her. Such things are of frequent occurrence; but I will make all
necessary inquiries when I go back to-morrow, and will see that the
child is given to the proper authorities, who will either get it a
place, or put it in the poor-house.”

At the mention of the poor-house, Roger’s eyes, usually so mild in their
expression, flashed defiantly upon the conductor. While the crowd around
him had been talking, a faint doubt as to the practicability of his
taking the child had crossed his mind. His father was dead, he had his
education to get, and Millbank might perhaps be shut up, or let to
strangers for several years to come. And what then could be done with
Baby. These were his sober-second thoughts after his first indignant
burst at finding the child deserted, and had some respectable,
kind-looking woman then offered to take his charge from his hands, he
might have given it up. But from the poor-house arrangement he recoiled
in horror, remembering a sweet-faced, blue-eyed little girl, with
tangled hair and milk-white feet, whom he had seen sitting on the door
of the poor-house in Belvidere. She had been found in a stable, and sent
to the almshouse. Nobody cared for her,—nobody but Roger, who often fed
her with apples and candy, and wished there was something better for her
than life in that dark dreary house among the hills. And it was to just
such a life, if not a worse one, that the cruel conductor would doom the
Baby left in his care.

“If I can help it, Baby shall never go to the poor-house,” Roger said;
and when a lady, who admired the spirit of the boy, asked him, “Have you
a mother?” he answered, “No, nor father either, but I have Hester”; and
as if that settled it, he put the child on the end of the seat farthest
away from the crowd, which gradually dispersed, while the conductor,
after inquiring Roger’s name and address, went about his business of
collecting tickets, and left him to himself.

That he ever got comfortably from Cleveland to Belvidere with his rather
troublesome charge, was almost a miracle, and he would not have done so
but for the many friendly hands stretched out to help him. As far as
Buffalo, there were those in the car who knew of the strange incident,
and who watched, and encouraged, and helped him, but after Buffalo was
left behind he was wholly among strangers. Still, a boy travelling with
a baby could not fail to attract attention, and many inquiries were made
of him as to the whys and wherefores of his singular position. He did
not think it necessary to make very lucid explanations. He said, “She is
my sister; not my own, but my adopted sister, whom I am taking home;”
and he blessed his good angel, which caused the child to sleep so much
of the time, as he thus avoided notice and remarks which were
distasteful to him. Occasionally, a thought of what Hester might say
would make him a little uncomfortable. She was the only one who could
possibly object,—the only one in fact who had a right to object,—for
with the great shock of his father’s death Roger had been made to feel
that he was now the rightful master at Millbank. His prospective
inheritance had been talked of at once in the family of the clergyman,
who had moved from Belvidere to St. Louis, and with whom Roger was
preparing for college when the news of his loss came to him.

Mr. Morrison had said to him, “You are rich, my boy. You are owner of
Millbank, but do not let your wealth become a snare. Do good with your
money, and remember that a tenth, at least, belongs by right to the
Lord.”

And amidst the keen pain which he felt at his father’s death, Roger had
thought how much good he would do, and how he would imitate his noble
friend and teacher, Mr. Morrison, who, from his scanty income,
cheerfully gave more than a tenth, and still never lacked for food or
raiment. That Baby was sent direct from Heaven to test his principles,
he made himself believe; and by the time the mountains of Massachusetts
were reached he began to feel quite composed, except on the subject of
Hester. She _did_ trouble him a little, and he wished the first meeting
with her was over. With careful forethought he telegraphed for her to
meet him, and then when he saw her he held the child to her at once, and
hastily told her a part of his story, and felt his heart grow heavy as
lead, when he saw how she shrank from the little one as if there had
been pollution in its touch.

“I reckon Mrs. Walter Scott will ride a high hoss when she knows what
you done,” Hester said, when at last they were in the carriage and
driving toward home.

At the mention of Mrs. Walter Scott, Roger grew uneasy. He had a dread
of his stylish sister-in-law, with her lofty manner and air of
superiority, and he shrank nervously from what she might say.

“O Hester!” he exclaimed. “Is Helen at Millbank; and will she put on her
_biggest ways_?”

“You needn’t be afraid of _Helen Brown_. ’Tain’t none of her business if
you bring a hundred young ones to Millbank,” Hester said, and as she
said it she came very near going over to the enemy, and espousing the
cause of the poor little waif in her arms, out of sheer defiance to Mrs.
Walter Scott, who was sure to _snub_ the stranger, as she had snubbed
Roger before her.

Matters were in this state when the carriage finally stopped at
Millbank, and Hester insisted upon taking the child through the kitchen
door, as the way most befitting for it. But Roger said no; and so it was
up the broad stone steps, and across the wide piazza, and into the
handsome hall, that Baby was carried upon her first entrance to
Millbank.




                              CHAPTER III.
                       WHAT THEY DID AT MILLBANK.


“Oh! Roger, this is a sorry coming home,” Mrs. Walter Scott had said
when Roger first appeared in view; and taking a step forward, she kissed
him quite affectionately, and even ran her white fingers through his
moist hair in a pitying kind of way.

She could afford to be gracious to the boy whom she had wronged, but
when Frank threw the bomb-shell at her feet with regard to the
mysterious bundle under Hester’s shawl, she drew back quickly, and
demanded of her young brother-in-law what it meant. She looked very
grand, and tall, and white in her mourning robes, and Roger quaked as he
had never done before in her presence, and half wished he had left the
innocent baby to the tender mercies of the conductor and the poor-house.
But this was only while he stood damp and uncomfortable in the chilly
hall, with the cold rain beating in upon him. The moment he entered the
warm parlor, where the fire was blazing in the grate and the light from
the wax candles shone upon the familiar furniture, he felt a sense of
comfort and reassurance creeping over him, and unconscious to himself a
feeling of the _master_ came with the sense of comfort, and made him
less afraid of the queenly-looking woman standing by the mantel, and
waiting for his story. He was at home,—his own home,—where he had a
right to keep a hundred deserted children if he liked. This was what
Hester had said in referring to Mrs. Walter Scott, and it recurred to
Roger now with a deeper meaning than he had given it at that time. He
_had_ a right, and Mrs. Walter Scott, though she might properly suggest
and advise, could not take that right from him. And the story which he
told her was colored with this feeling of doing as he thought best; and
shrewd Mrs. Walter Scott detected it at once, and her large black eyes
had in them a gleam of scorn not altogether free from pity as she
thought how mistaken he was, and how the morrow would materially change
his views with regard to many things. She had not seen Roger in nearly a
year and a half, and in that time he had grown taller and stouter and
more manly than the boy of twelve, whom she remembered in roundabouts.
He wore roundabouts still, and his collar was turned down and tied with
a simple black ribbon, and he was only fourteen; but a well-grown boy
for that age, with a curve about his lip and a look in his eyes, which
told that the man within him was beginning to develop, and warned her
that she had a stronger foe to deal with than she had anticipated; so
she restrained herself, and was very calm and lady-like and collected as
she asked him what he proposed doing with the child whom he had so
unwisely brought to Millbank.

Roger had some vague idea of a nurse with a frilled cap, and a nursery
with toys scattered over the floor, and a crib with lace curtains over
it, and a baby-head making a dent in the pillow, and a baby voice cooing
him a welcome when he came in, and a baby-cart, sent from New York, and
a fancy blanket with it. Indeed, this pleasant picture of something he
had seen in St. Louis, in one of the handsome houses where he
occasionally visited, had more than once presented itself to his mind as
forming a part of the future, but he would not for the world have let
Mrs. Walter Scott into that sanctuary. That cold, proud-faced woman
confronting him so calmly had nothing in common with his ideals, and so
he merely replied:

“She can be taken care of without much trouble. Hester is not too old.
She made me a capital nurse.”

It was of no use to reason with him, and Mrs. Walter Scott did not try.
She merely said:

“It was a very foolish thing to do, and no one but you would have done
it. You will think better of it after a little, and get the child off
your hands. You were greatly shocked, of course, at the dreadful news?”

It was the very first allusion anybody had made to the cause of Roger’s
being there. The baby had absorbed every one’s attention, and the dead
man upstairs had been for a time forgotten by all save Roger. He had
through all been conscious of a heavy load of pain, a feeling of loss;
and as he drove up to the house he had looked sadly toward the windows
of the room where he had oftenest seen his father. He did not know that
he was there now; he did not know where he was; and when Mrs. Walter
Scott referred to him so abruptly, he answered with a quivering lip:
“Where is father? Did they lay him in his own room?”

“Yes, you’ll find him looking very natural,—almost as if he were alive;
but I would not see him to-night. You are too tired. You must be hungry,
too. You have had no supper. What can Hester be doing?”

Mrs. Walter Scott was in a very kind mood now, and volunteered to go
herself to the kitchen to see why Roger’s supper was not forthcoming.
But in this she was forestalled by Ruey, who came to say that supper was
waiting in the dining-room, whither Roger went, followed by his
sister-in-law, who poured his tea and spread him slices of bread and
butter, with plenty of raspberry jam. And Roger relished the bread and
jam with a boy’s keen appetite, and thought it was nicer to be at
Millbank than in the poor clergyman’s box of a house at St. Louis, and
then, with a great sigh, thought of the white-haired old man, who used
to welcome him home and pat him so kindly on his head and call him
“Roger-boy.” The white-haired man was gone forever now, and with a
growing sense of loneliness and loss, Roger finished his supper and went
to the kitchen, where Baby lay sleeping upon the settee which Hester had
drawn to the fire, while Frank sat on a little stool, keeping watch over
her. He had indorsed the Baby from the first, and when Hester gruffly
bade him “keep out from under foot,” he had meekly brought up the stool
and seated himself demurely between the settee and the oven door, where
he was entirely out of the way.

Hester still looked very much disturbed and aggrieved, and when she met
Roger on his way to the kitchen, she passed him without a word; but the
Hester Floyd who, after a time, went back to the kitchen, was in a very
different mood from the one who had met Roger a short time before. This
change had been wrought by a few words spoken to her by Mrs. Walter
Scott, who sat over the fire in the dining-room when Hester entered it,
and who began to talk of the baby which “that foolish boy had brought
home.”

“I should suppose he would have known better; but then, Mrs. Floyd, you
must be aware of the fact that in some things Roger is rather weak and a
little like his mother, who proved pretty effectually how vacillating
she was, and how easily influenced.”

Hester’s straight, square back grew a trifle squarer and straighter, and
Baby’s cause began to gain ground, for Hester deemed it a religious duty
to oppose whatever Mrs. Walter Scott approved. So if the lady was for
sending the Baby away from Millbank, she was for keeping it there. Still
she made no comments, but busied herself with putting away the sugar and
cream and pot of jam, into which Roger had made such inroads.

Seeing her auditor was not disposed to talk, Mrs. Walter Scott
continued:

“You have more influence with Roger than any one else, and I trust you
will use that influence in the right direction; for supposing everything
were so arranged that he could keep the child at Millbank, the trouble
would fall on you, and it is too much to ask of a woman of your age.”

Hester was not sensitive on the point of age, but to have Mrs. Walter
Scott speak of her as if she were in her dotage was more than she could
bear, and she answered tartly,—

“I am only fifty-two. I reckon I am not past bringin’ up a child. I
ain’t quite got softenin’ of the brain, and if master Roger has a mind
to keep the poor forsaken critter, it ain’t for them who isn’t his
betters to go agin it. The owner of Millbank can do as he has a mind,
and Roger is the master now, you know.”

With this speech Hester whisked out of the room, casting a glance
backward to see the effect of her parting shot on Mrs. Walter Scott.
Perhaps it was the reflection of the fire or her scarlet shawl which
cast such a glow on the lady’s white cheek, and perhaps it was what
Hester said; but aside from the rosy flush there was no change in her
countenance, unless it were an expression of benevolent pity for people
who were so deluded as Mrs. Floyd and Roger. “Wait till to-morrow and
you may change your opinion,” trembled on Mrs. Walter Scott’s lips, but
to say that would be to betray her knowledge of what she meant should
appear as great a surprise to herself as to any one. So she wrapped her
shawl more closely around her, and leaned back languidly in her chair,
while Hester went up the back stairs to an old chest filled with linen,
and redolent with the faint perfume of sprigs of lavender and cedar,
rose-leaves and geraniums, which were scattered promiscuously among the
yellow garments. That chest was a sacred place to Hester, for it held
poor Jessie’s linen, the dainty garments trimmed with lace, and tucks
and ruffles and puffs, which the old Squire had bidden Hester put out of
his sight, and which she had folded away in the big old chest, watering
them with her tears, and kissing the tiny slippers which had been found
just where Jessie left them. The remainder of Jessie’s wardrobe was in
the bureau in the Squire’s own room,—the white satin dress and pearls
which she wore in the picture,—the expensive veil, the orange wreath
which had crowned her golden hair at the bridal, and many other costly
things which the old man had heaped upon his darling, were all there
under lock and key. But Hester kept the oaken chest, and under Jessie’s
clothes were sundry baby garments which Hester had laid away as mementos
of the happy days when Roger was a baby, and his beautiful mother the
pride of Millbank and the belle of Belvidere.

“If that child only stays one night, she must have a night-gown to sleep
in,” she said, as with a kind of awe she turned over the contents of the
chest till she came to a pile of night gowns which Roger had worn.

Selecting the plainest and coarsest of them all, she closed the chest
and went down stairs to the kitchen, where both the boys were bending
over the settee and talking to the Baby. There was a softness in her
manner now, something really motherly, as she took the little one, and
began to undress it, with Roger and Frank looking curiously on.

“Dirty as the rot,” was her comment, as she saw the marks of car-dust
and smoke cinders on the fat neck and arms and hands. “She or’to have a
bath, and she must, too. Here, Ruey, bring me some warm water, and fetch
the biggest foot-tub, and a piece of castile soap, and a crash-towel,
and you boys, go out of here, both of you. I’ll see that the youngster
is taken care of.”

Roger knew from the tone of her voice that Baby was safe with her, and
he left the kitchen with his spirits so much lightened that he began to
hum a popular air he had heard in the streets in St. Louis.

“Oh, Roger, _singin’_, with grandpa dead,” Frank exclaimed; and then
Roger remembered the white, stiffened form upstairs, and thought himself
a hardened wretch that he could for a moment have so forgotten his loss
as to sing a negro melody.

“I did not mean any disrespect to father,” he said softly to Frank, and
without going back to the parlor, he stole up to his own room, and
kneeling by his bedside, said the familiar prayer commencing with “Our
Father,” and then cried himself to sleep with thinking of the dead
father, who could never speak to him again.




                              CHAPTER IV.
                      THE MORNING OF THE FUNERAL.


If Frank Irving had been poor, instead of the grandson of a wealthy man,
he would have made a splendid carpenter; for all his tastes, which were
not given to horses, ran in the channel of a mechanic, and numerous were
the frames and boxes and stools which he had fashioned at Millbank with
the set of tools his grandfather had bought him. The tools had been kept
at Millbank, for Mrs. Walter Scott would not have her house on Lexington
Avenue “lumbered up;” and with the first dawn of the morning after
Roger’s return, Frank was busy in devising what he intended as a cradle
for the baby. He had thought of it the night before, when he saw it on
the settee; and, now, with the aid of a long, narrow candle-box and a
pair of rockers which he took from an old chair, he succeeded in
fashioning as uncouth a looking thing as ever a baby was rocked in.

“It’s because the sides are so rough,” he said, surveying his work with
a rueful face. “I mean to paper it, and maybe the darned thing will look
better.”

He knew where there were some bits of wall paper, and selecting the very
gaudiest piece, with the largest pattern, he fitted it to the cradle,
and then letting Ruey into his secret, coaxed her to make some paste and
help him put it on. The cradle had this in its favor, that it would rock
as well as a better one; and tolerably satisfied with his work, Frank
took it to the kitchen, where it was received with smothered bursts of
laughter from the servants, who nevertheless commended the boy’s
ingenuity; and when the baby, nicely dressed in a cotton slip which
Roger used to wear, was brought from Hester’s room and lifted into her
new place, she seemed, with her bright, flashing eyes, and restless,
graceful motions, to cast a kind of halo around the candle-box and make
it beautiful just because she was in it. Roger was delighted, and in his
generous heart he thought how many things he would do for Frank in
return for his kindness to the little child, crowing, and spattering its
hands in its dish of milk, and laughing aloud as the white drops fell on
Frank’s face and hair. Baby evidently felt at home, and fresh and neat
in her clean dress, she looked even prettier than on the previous night,
and made a very pleasing picture in her papered cradle, with the two
boys on their knees paying her homage, and feeling no jealousy of each
other because of the attentions the coquettish little creature lavished
equally upon them.

Our story leads us now away from the candle-box to the dining-room,
where the breakfast was served, and where Mrs. Walter Scott presided in
handsome morning-gown, with a becoming little breakfast cap, which
concealed the curl papers not to be taken out till later in the day, for
fear of damage to the glossy curls from the still damp, rainy weather.
The lady was very gracious to Roger, and remembering the _penchant_ he
had manifested for raspberry jam, she asked for the jar and gave him a
larger dish of it than she did to Frank, and told him he was looking
quite rested, and then proceeded to speak of the arrangements for the
funeral, and asked if they met his approbation. Roger would acquiesce in
whatever she thought proper, he said; and he swallowed his coffee and
jam hastily to force down the lumps which rose in his throat every time
he remembered what was to be that afternoon. The undertakers came in to
see that all was right while he was at breakfast, and after they were
gone Roger went to the darkened chamber for a first look at his dead
father.

Hester was with him. She was very nervous this morning, and hardly
seemed capable of anything except keeping close to Roger. She knew she
would not be in the way, even in the presence of the dead; and so she
followed him, and uncovered the white face, and cried herself a little
when she saw how passionately Roger wept, and tried to soothe him, and
told him how much his father had talked of him the last few weeks, and
how he had died in the very act of writing to him.

“The pen was in his hand, right over the words, ‘My dear Roger,’ Aleck
said, for he found him, you know; and on the table lay another letter,—a
soiled, worn letter, which had been wet with—with—sea-water—”

Hester was speaking with a great effort now, and Roger was looking
curiously at her.

“Whose letter was it?” he asked; and Hester replied:

“It was his,—your father’s; and it came from—_her_—your mother.”

With a low, suppressed scream, Roger bounded to Hester’s side, and,
grasping her shoulder, said, vehemently:

“From _mother_, Hester,—from _mother_! Is she alive, as I have sometimes
dreamed? Is she? Tell me, Hester!”

The boy was greatly excited, and his eyes were like burning coals as he
eagerly questioned Hester, who answered, sadly:

“No, my poor boy! Your mother is dead, and the letter was written years
ago, just before the boat went down. Your father must have had it all
the while, though I never knew it—till—well, not till some little while
ago, when Mrs. Walter Scott was here the last time. I overheard him
telling her about it, and when I found that yellow, stained paper on the
table, I knew in a minute it was the letter, and I kept it for you, with
the one your father had begun to write. Shall I fetch ’em now, or will
you wait till the funeral is over? I guess you better wait.”

This Roger could not do. He knew but little of his mother’s unfortunate
life. He could not remember her, and all his ideas of her had been
formed from the beautiful picture in the garret, and what Hester had
told him of her. Once, when a boy of eleven, he had asked his father
what it was about his mother, and why her picture was hidden away in the
garret, and his father had answered, sternly:

“I do not wish to talk about her, my son. She may not have been as
wicked as I at first supposed, but she disgraced you, and did me a great
wrong.”

And that was all Roger could gather from his father; while Hester and
Aleck were nearly as reticent with regard to the dark shadow which had
fallen on Millbank and its proud owner.

When, therefore, there was an opportunity of hearing directly from the
mysterious mother herself, it was not natural for Roger to wait, even if
a dozen funerals had been in progress, and he demanded that Hester
should bring him the letters at once.

“Bring them into this room. I would rather read mother’s letter here,”
he said, and Hester departed to do his bidding.

She was not absent long, and when she returned she gave into Roger’s
hands a fresh sheet of note-paper, which had never been folded, together
with a soiled, stained letter, which looked as if some parts of it might
have come in contact with the sea.

“Nobody knows I found this one but Aleck, and, perhaps, you better say
nothing about it,” Hester suggested, as she passed him poor Jessie’s
letter, and then turned to leave the room.

Roger bolted the door after her, for he would not be disturbed while he
read these messages from the dead,—one from the erring woman who for
years had slept far down in the ocean depths, and the other from the man
who lay there in his coffin. He took his father’s first, but that was a
mere nothing. It only read:

                                                     “MILLBANK, April —.

  “MY DEAR BOY—For many days I have had a presentiment that I had not
  much longer to live, and, as death begins to stare me in the face, my
  thoughts turn toward you, my dear Roger——”

Here came a great blot, as if the ink had dropped from the pen or the
pen had dropped from the hand; the writing ceased, and that was all
there was for the boy from his father. But it showed that he had been
last in the thoughts of the dead man, and his tears fell fast upon his
father’s farewell words. Then, reverently, carefully, gently, as if it
were some sea-wrecked spectre he was handling, he took the other letter,
experiencing a kind of chilly sensation as he opened it, and inhaled the
musty odor pervading it. The letter was mailed in New York, and the
superscription was not like the delicate writing inside. It was a man’s
chirography,—a bold, dashing hand,—and for a moment Roger sat studying
the explicit direction:

                                 “WILLIAM H. IRVING, ESQ.,
                                                     “(Millbank)
                                                         “BELVIDERE,
                                                                 “CONN.”

Whose writing was it, and how came the letter to be mailed in New York,
if, as Hester had said, it had been written on board the ill-fated “Sea
Gull”? Roger asked himself this question, as he lingered over the unread
letter, till, remembering that the inside was the place to look for an
explanation, he turned to the first page and began to read. It was dated
on board the “Sea Gull,” off Cape Hatteras, and began as follows:

“MY HUSBAND:—It would be mockery for me to put the word _dear_ before
your honored name. You would not believe I meant it,—I, who have sinned
against you so deeply, and wounded your pride so sorely. But, oh, if you
knew all which led me to what I am, I know you would pity me, even if
you condemned, for you were always kind,—too kind by far to a wicked
girl like me. But, husband, I am not as bad as you imagine. I have left
you, I know, and left my darling boy, and _he_ is here with me, but by
no consent of mine. I tried to escape from him. I am not going to
Europe. I am on my way to Charleston, where Lucy lives, and when I get
there I shall mail this letter to you. Every word I write will be the
truth, and you must believe it, and teach Roger to believe it, too; for
I have not sinned as you suppose, and Roger need not blush for his
mother, except that she deserted him—”

“Thank Heaven!” dropped from Roger’s quivering lips, as the suspected
evil which, as he grew older, he began to fear and shrink from, was thus
swept away.

He had no doubts, no misgivings now, and his tears fell like rain upon
poor Jessie’s letter, which he kissed again and again, just as he would
have kissed the dear face of the writer had it been there beside him.

“Mother, mother!” he sobbed, “I believe you; oh, mother, if you could
have lived!”

Then he went back to the letter, the whole of which it is not our design
to give at present. It embraced the history of Jessie’s life from the
days of her early girlhood up to that night when she left her husband’s
home, and closed with the words:

“I do not ask you to take me back. I know that can never be; but I want
you to think as kindly of me as you can, and when you feel that you have
fully forgiven me, show this letter to Roger, if he is old enough to
understand it. Tell him to forgive me, and give him this lock of his
mother’s hair. Heaven bless and keep my little boy, and grant that he
may be a comfort to you and grow up a good and noble man.”

The lock of hair, which was enclosed in a separate bit of paper, had
dropped upon the carpet, where Roger found it, his heart swelling in his
throat as he opened the paper and held upon his finger the coil of
golden hair. It was very long, and curled still with a persistency which
Mrs. Walter Scott, with all her papers, could never hope to attain; but
the softness and brightness were gone, and it clung to Roger’s finger, a
streaked, faded tress, but inexpressibly dear to him for the sake of her
who sued so piteously for his own and his father’s forgiveness.

“When you feel that you have fully forgiven me, show this letter to
Roger, if he is old enough to understand it.”

Roger read this sentence over again, and drew therefrom this inference.
The letter had never been shown to him, therefore the writer had not
been forgiven by the dead man, whose face, even in the coffin, wore the
stern, inflexible look which Roger always remembered to have seen upon
it. ‘Squire Irving had been very reserved, and very unforgiving too. He
could not easily forget an injury to himself, and that he had not
forgiven Jessie’s sin was proved by the fact that he had never given the
letter to his son, who, for a moment, felt himself growing hard and
indignant toward one who could hold out against the sweet, piteous
pleadings in that letter from poor, unfortunate Jessie.

“But I forgive you, mother; I believe you innocent. I bless and revere
your memory, my poor, poor, lost mother!” Roger sobbed, as he kissed the
faded curl and kissed the sea-stained letter.

He knew now how it came to be mailed in New York, and shuddered as he
read again the postscript, written by a stranger, who said that a few
hours after Jessie’s letter was finished, a fire had broken out and
spread so rapidly that all communication with the life-boats was cut
off, and escape seemed impossible; that in the moment of peril Jessie
had come to him with the letter, which she asked him to take, and if he
escaped alive, to send to Millbank with the news of her death. She also
wished him to add that, so far as _he_ was concerned, what she had
written was true; which he accordingly did, as he could “not do
otherwise than obey the commands of one so lovely as Mrs. Irving.”

“Curse him; curse that man!” Roger said, between his teeth, as he read
the unfeeling lines; and then, in fancy, he saw the dreadful scene: the
burning ship, the fearful agony of the doomed passengers, while amid it
all his mother’s golden hair, and white, beautiful face appeared, as she
stood before her betrayer, and charged him to send her dying message to
Millbank if he escaped and she did not.

It was an hour from the time Roger entered the room before he went out,
and in that hour he seemed to himself to have grown older by years than
he was before he knew so much of his mother and had read her
benediction.

“She was pure and good, let others believe as they may, and I will honor
her memory and try to be what I know she would like to have me,” he said
to Hester when he met her alone, and she asked him what he had learned
of his mother.

Hester had read the letter when she found it. It was not in her nature
to refrain, and she, too had fully exonerated Jessie and cursed the man
who had followed her, even to her husband’s side, with his alluring
words. But she would rather that Roger should not know of the liberty
she had taken, and so she said nothing of having read the letter first,
especially as he did not offer to show it to her. There was a clause in
what the bad man had written which might be construed into a doubt of
some portions of Jessie’s story, and Roger understood it; and, while it
only deepened his hatred of the man, instead of shaking his confidence
in his mother, he resolved that no eye but his own should ever see the
whole of that letter. But he showed Hester the curl of hair, and asked
if it was like his mother’s; and then, drawing her into the library,
questioned her minutely with regard to the past. And Hester told him all
she thought best of his mother’s life at Millbank;—of the scene in the
bridal chamber, when she wept so piteously and said, “I did not want to
come here;”—of the deep sadness in her beautiful face, which nothing
could efface;—of her utter indifference to the homage paid her by the
people of Belvidere, or the costly presents heaped upon her by her
husband.

“She was always kind and attentive to him,” Hester said; “but she kept
out of his way as much as possible, and I’ve seen her shiver and turn
white about the mouth if he just laid his hand on her in a kind of
lovin’ way, you know, as old men will have toward their young wives.
When she was expectin’ you, it was a study to see her sittin’ for hours
and hours in her own room, lookin’ straight into the fire, with her
hands clinched in her lap, and her eyes so sad and cryin’ like—”

“Didn’t mother want me born?” Roger asked with quivering lips; and
Hester answered,—

“At first I don’t think she did. She was a young girlish thing; but,
after you came, all that passed, and she just lived for you till that
unlucky trip to Saratoga, when she was never like herself again.”

“You were with her, Hester. Did you see _him_?”

“I was there only a few days, and you was took sick. The air or
something didn’t agree with you, and I fetched you home. Your father was
more anxious for me to do that than she was. No, I didn’t see him to
know him. Your mother drew a crowd around her and he might have been in
it, but I never seen him.

There was a call for Roger, and, hiding his mother’s letter in a private
drawer of the writing-desk, he went out to meet the gentlemen who were
to take charge of his father’s funeral.




                               CHAPTER V.
                              THE FUNERAL.


There was to be quite a display, for the ‘Squire had lived in Belvidere
for forty years. He was the wealthiest man in the place,—the one who
gave the most to every benevolent object and approved of every public
improvement. He had bought the organ and bell for the church in the
little village; he had built the parsonage at his own expense, and half
of the new town-house. He owned the large manufactory on the river, and
the shoe-shop on the hill; and the workmen, who had ever found him a
kind, considerate master, were going to follow him to the grave together
with the other citizens of the town. The weather, however, was
unpropitious, for the rain kept steadily falling, and by noon was
driving in sheets across the river and down the winding valley. Mrs.
Walter Scott’s hair, though kept in papers until the early dinner, at
which some of the village magnates were present, came out of curl, and
she was compelled to loop it back from her face, which style added to
rather than detracted from her beauty. But she did not think so, and she
was not feeling very amiable when she went down to dinner and met young
Mr. Schofield, the old lawyer’s son, who had stepped into his father’s
business and had been frequently to Millbank. Marriage was not a thing
which Mrs. Walter Scott contemplated. She liked her freedom too well,
but she always liked to make a good impression,—to look her very
best,—to be admired by gentlemen, if they were gentlemen whose
admiration was worth the having. And young Schofield was worth her while
to cultivate, and in spite of her straightened hair he thought her very
handsome, and stylish, and grand, and made himself very agreeable at the
table and in the parlor after the dinner was over. He knew more of the
Squire’s affairs than any one in Belvidere. He was at Millbank only the
day before the Squire died, and had an appointment to come again on the
very evening of his death.

“He was going to change his will; add a codicil or something,” he said,
and Mrs. Walter Scott looked up uneasily as she replied,—

“He left a will, then? Do you know anything of it?”

“No, madam. And if I did, I could not honorably reveal my knowledge,”
the lawyer answered, a little stiffly; while Mrs. Walter Scott,
indignant at herself for her want of discretion, bit her lip and tapped
her foot impatiently upon the carpet.

It was time now for the people to assemble, and as the bell, which the
squire had given to the parish, sent forth its summons, the villagers
came crowding up the avenue and soon filled the lower portion of the
house, their damp, steaming garments making Mrs. Walter Scott very
faint, and sending her often to her smelling-salts, which were her
unfailing remedy for the sickening perfumes which she fancied were found
only among the common people like those filling the rooms at
Millbank,—the “factory bugs” who smelt of wool, and the “shop hands” who
carried so strong an odor of leather wherever they went. Mrs. Walter
Scott did not like shoemakers nor factory hands, and she sat very stiff
and dignified, and looked at them contemptuously from behind her long
veil as they crowded into the hall and drawing-room, and managed, some
of them, to gain access to the kitchen where the baby was. Her story had
flown like lightning through the town, and the people had discussed it,
from Mrs. Johnson and her set down to Hester’s married niece, who kept
the little public house by the toll-gate, and who had seen the child
herself.

“It was just like Roger Irving to bring it home,” the people all agreed,
just as they agreed that it would be absurd for him to keep it.

That he would not do so they were sure, and the fear that it might be
sent away before they had a look at it brought many a woman to the
funeral that rainy, disagreeable day. Baby was Ruey’s charge for that
afternoon, and in a fresh white dress which Hester had brought from the
chest, she sat in her candle-box, surrounded by as heterogeneous a mass
of playthings as were ever conjured up to amuse a child. There was a
silver-spoon, and a tin cup, and a tea-canister, and a feather duster,
and Frank’s ball, and Roger’s tooth-brush, and some false hair which
Hester used to wear as puffs and which amused the baby more than all the
other articles combined. She seemed to have a fancy for tearing hair,
and shook and pulled the faded wig in high glee, and won many a kiss and
hug and compliment from the curious women who gathered round her.

“She was a bright, playful darling,” they said, as they left her and
went back to the parlors where the funeral services were being read over
the cold, stiff form of Millbank’s late proprietor.

Roger’s face was very pale, and his eyes were fixed upon the carpet,
where he saw continually one of two pictures—his mother standing on the
“Sea Gull’s” deck, or sitting before the fire; as Hester had said she
sat, with her eyes always upon one point, the cheerful blaze curling up
the chimney’s mouth.

“I’ll find that man sometime. I’ll make him tell why he left that doubt
to torture me,” he was thinking, just as the closing hymn was sung and
the services were ended.

Mrs. Walter Scott did not think it advisable to go to the grave, and so
Hester and Aleck went in the carriage with Roger and Frank, the only
relatives in all the long procession which wound down the avenue and
through the lower part of the town to where the tall Irving monument
showed plainly in the Belvidere cemetery. The Squire’s first wife was
there in the yard; her name was on the marble,—“Adeline, beloved wife of
William H. Irving;” and Walter Scott’s name was there, too, though he
was sleeping in Greenwood; but Jessie’s name had not been added to the
list, and Roger noticed it, and wondered he had never been struck by the
omission as he was now, and to himself he said: “I can’t bring you up
from your ocean bed, dear mother, and put you here where you belong, but
I can do you justice otherwise, and I will.”

Slowly the long procession made the circuit of the cemetery and passed
out into the street, where, with the dead behind them, the horses were
put to greater speed, and those of the late Squire Irving drew up ere
long before the door of Millbank. The rain was over and the April sun
was breaking through the clouds, while patches of clear blue sky were
spreading over the heavens. It bade fair to be a fine warm afternoon,
and the windows and doors of Millbank were open to let out the
atmosphere of death and to let in the cheerful sunshine. Friendly hands
had been busy to make the house attractive to the mourners when they
returned from the grave. There were bright flowers in the vases on the
mantel and tables, the furniture was put back in its place, the drapery
removed from the mirrors, and the wind blew softly through the lace
curtains into the handsome rooms. And Mrs. Walter Scott, wrapped in her
scarlet shawl, knew she looked a very queen as she trailed her long
skirts slowly over the carpets, and thought with a feeling of intense
satisfaction how pleasant it was at Millbank now, and how doubly
pleasant it would be later in the season when her changes and
improvements were completed. She should not fill the house with company
that summer, she thought. It would not look well so soon after the
Squire’s death, but she would have Mrs. Chesterfield there with her
sister Grace, and possibly Captain Stanhope, Grace’s betrothed. That
would make quite a gay party, and excite sufficiently the envy and
admiration of the villagers. Mrs. Walter Scott was never happy unless
she was envied or admired, and as she seemed on the high road to both
these conditions, she felt very amiable, and kind, and sweet-tempered as
she stood in the door waiting to receive Roger and Frank when they
returned from the burial.




                              CHAPTER VI.
                     THE EVENING AFTER THE FUNERAL.


Young Schofield had been asked by Mrs. Walter Scott to return to
Millbank after the services at the grave were over. She had her own
ideas with regard to the proper way of managing the _will_ matter, and
the sooner the truth was known the sooner would all parties understand
the ground they stood on. She knew _her_ ground. She had no fears for
herself. The will,—Squire Irving’s last will and testament,—was lying in
his private drawer in the writing-desk, where she had seen it every day
since she had been at Millbank; but she had not read it, for the
envelope was _sealed_, and having a most unbounded respect for law and
justice, and fancying that to break the seal would neither be just nor
lawful, she had contented herself with merely taking the package in her
hand, and assuring herself that it was safe against the moment when it
was wanted. It had struck her that it was a little yellow and time-worn,
but she had no suspicion that anything was wrong. To-day, however, while
the people were at the grave, she had been slightly startled, for when
for a second time she tried the drawer of the writing-desk, she found it
locked and the key gone! Had there been foul play? and who had locked
the door? she asked herself, while, for a moment, the cold perspiration
stood under her hair. Then thinking it probable that Roger, who was
noted for thoughtfulness, might have turned and taken the key to his
father’s private drawer as a precaution against any curious ones who
might be at the funeral, she dismissed her fears and waited calmly for
the _dénouement_r individual was doing,—_Hester Floyd_,—who knew about
the sealed package just as Mrs. Walter Scott did, and who had been
deterred from opening it for the same reason which had actuated that
lady, and who had also seen and handled it each day since the squire’s
death.

Hester, too, knew that the drawer was locked, and that gave her a
feeling of security, while on her way to and from the grave, where her
mind was running far more upon the _after-clap_, as she termed it, than
upon the solemn service for the dead. Hester was very nervous, and an
extra amount of green tea was put in the steeper for her benefit, and
she could have shaken the unimpressible Aleck for seeming so composed
and unconcerned when he stood, as she said, “right over a dreadful,
gapin’ vertex.”

And Aleck _was_ unconcerned. Whatever he had lent his aid to had been
planned by his better half, in whom he had unbounded confidence. If she
stood over “a gapin’ vertex,” she had the ability to skirt round it or
across it, and take him safely with her. So Aleck had no fears, and ate
a hearty supper and drank his mug of beer and smoked his pipe in quiet,
and heard, without the least perturbation, the summons for the servants
to assemble in the library and hear their master’s last will and
testament. This was Mrs. Walter Scott’s idea, and when tea was over she
had said to young Schofield:

“You told me father left a will. Perhaps it would be well enough for you
to read it to us before you go. I will have the servants in, as they are
probably remembered in it.”

Her manner was very deferential toward young Schofield and implied
confidence in his abilities, and flattered by attention from so great a
lady he expressed himself as at her service for anything. So when the
daylight was gone and the wax candles were lighted in the library, Mrs.
Walter Scott repaired thither with Frank, whom she had brought from his
post by the candle-box. It was natural that he should be present as well
as Roger, and she arranged the two boys, one on each side of her, and
motioned the servants to seats across the room, and Lawyer Schofield to
the arm-chair near the centre of the room. She was making it very formal
and ceremonious, and _Englishy_, and Roger wondered what it was all for,
while Frank fidgeted and longed for the candle-box, where the baby lay
asleep.

“I am told Squire Irving left a will,” Mrs. Walter Scott said, when her
auditors were assembled, “and I thought best for Mr. Schofield to read
it. Do you know where it is?” and she addressed herself to the lawyer,
who replied, “I am sure I do not, unless in his private drawer where he
kept his important papers.”

Roger flushed a little then, for it was into that private drawer that he
had put his mother’s letter, and the key was in his pocket. Mrs. Walter
Scott noticed the flush, but was not quite prepared to see Roger arise
at once, unlock the drawer, and take from it a package, which was not
the will, but which, nevertheless, excited her curiosity.

“Lawyer Schofield can examine the papers,” Roger said, resuming his
seat, while the young man went to the drawer and took out the sealed
envelope which both Mrs. Walter Scott and Hester had had in their hands
so many times within the last few days.

             “WILLIAM H. IRVING’S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT.”

There was no doubt about its being the genuine article, and the lawyer
waited a moment before opening it. There was perfect silence in the
room, except for the clock on the mantle, which ticked so loudly and
made Hester so nervous that she almost screamed aloud. The candles
sputtered a little, and ran up long, black wicks, and the fire on the
hearth cast weird shadows on the wall, and the silence was growing
oppressive, when Frank, who could endure no longer, pulled his mother’s
skirts, and exclaimed, “Mother, mother, what is he going to do, and why
don’t he do it? I want the darned thing over so I can go out.”

That broke the spell, and Lawyer Schofield began to read Squire Irving’s
last will and testament. It was dated five years before, at a time when
the Squire lay on his sick bed, from which he never expected to rise,
and not long after his purchase of the house on Lexington Avenue for
Mrs. Walter Scott. There was mention made of his deceased son having
received his entire portion, but the sum of four hundred dollars was
annually to be paid for Frank’s education until he was of age, when he
was to receive from the estate five thousand dollars to “set himself up
in business, provided that business had nothing to do with _horses_.”

The old man’s aversion to the rock on which his son had split was
manifest even in his will, but no one paid any heed to it then. They
were listening too eagerly to the reading of the document, which, after
remembering Frank, and leaving a legacy to the church in Belvidere, and
another to an orphan asylum in New York, and another to his servants,
with the exception of Aleck and Hester, gave the whole of the Irving
possessions, both real and personal, to the boy Roger, who was as far as
possible from realizing that he was the richest heir for miles and miles
around. He was feeling sorry that Frank had not fared better, and
wondering why Aleck and Hester had not been remembered. _They_ were
witnesses of the will, and there was no mistaking Hester’s straight up
and down letters, or Aleck’s back-hand.

Mrs. Walter Scott was confounded,—utterly, totally confounded, and for a
moment deprived of her powers of speech. That she had not listened to
the Squire’s _last_ will and testament,—that there was foul play
somewhere, she fully believed, and she scanned the faces of those
present to find the guilty one. But for the fact that Aleck and Hester
were not remembered in this will, she might have suspected them; but the
omission of their names was in their favor, while the stolid, almost
stupid look of Aleck’s face, was another proof of his innocence. Hester,
too, though slightly restless, appeared as usual. Nobody showed guilt
but _Roger_, whose face had turned very red, and was very red still as
he sat fidgeting in his chair and looking hard at Frank. The locked
drawer and the package taken from it, recurred now to the lady’s mind,
and made her sure that Roger had the real will in his pocket; and, in a
choking voice, she said to the lawyer, as he was about to congratulate
the boy on his brilliant fortune: “Stop, please, Mr. Schofield; I
think—yes, I know—there was another will—a later one—in which matters
were reversed—and—and Frank—was the heir.”

Her words rang through the room, and, for an instant, those who heard
them sat as if stunned. Roger’s face was white now, instead of red, but
he didn’t look as startled as might have been expected. He did not
realize that if what his sister said was true, he was almost a
beggar;—he only thought how much better it was for Frank, toward whom he
meant to be so generous; and he looked kindly at the little white-haired
boy who had, in a certain sense, come up as his rival. Mrs. Walter Scott
had risen from her chair and locked the door; then, going to the table
where the lawyer was sitting, she stood leaning upon it, and gazing
fixedly at Roger. The lawyer, greatly surprised at the turn matters were
taking, said to her a little sarcastically: “I fancied, from something
you said, that you did not know there was a _will_ at all. Why do you
think there was a later one? Did you ever see it, and why should Squire
Irving do injustice to his only son?”

Mrs. Walter Scott detected in the lawyer’s tone that he had forsaken
her, and it added to her excitement, making her so far forget her
character as a lady, that her voice was raised to an unnatural pitch,
and shook with anger as she replied, “I never saw it, but I know there
was one, and that your father drew it. It was made some months ago, when
I was visiting at Millbank. I went to Boston for a few days, and when I
came back, Squire Irving told me what he had done.”

“Who witnessed the will?” the lawyer asked.

“That I do not know. I only know there was one, and that Frank was the
heir.”

“A most unnatural thing to cut off his own son for a grandchild whose
father had already received his portion,” young Schofield said; and,
still more exasperated, Mrs. Walter Scott replied, “I do not know that
Roger _was_ cut off. I only know that Frank was to have Millbank, with
its appurtenances, and I’ll search this room until I find the stolen
paper. What was that you took from the drawer, boy?”

Roger was awake now to the situation. He understood that Mrs. Walter
Scott believed his father had deprived him of Millbank, the beautiful
home he loved so much, and he understood another fact, which, if
possible, cut deeper than disinheritance. She suspected him of stealing
the will. The Irving blood in the boy was roused. His eyes were not like
Jessie’s now, but flashed indignantly as he, too, rose to his feet, and,
confronting the angry woman, demanded what she meant.

“Show me that paper in your pocket, and tell me why that drawer was
locked this morning, and why you had the key,” she said; and Roger
replied, “You tried the drawer then, it seems, and found it locked. Tell
me, please, what business you had with my father’s private drawer and
papers?”

“I had the right of a daughter,—an older sister, whose business it was
to see that matters were kept straight until some head was appointed,”
Mrs. Walter Scott said, and then she asked again for the package which
Roger had taken from the drawer.

There was a moment’s hesitancy on Roger’s part; then, remembering that
she could not compel him to let her read his mother’s farewell message,
he took the sea-stained letter from his pocket and said:

“It was from my mother. She wrote it on the “Sea Gull,” just before it
took fire. It was found on the table where father sat writing to me when
he died. I believe he was going to send it to me. At all events it is
mine now, and I shall keep it. Hester gave it to me this morning, and I
put it in the private drawer and took the key with me. I knew nothing of
this will, or any other will, except that father always talked as if I
would have Millbank, and told me of some improvements it would be well
to make in the factory and shoe-shop in the course of a few years,
should he not live so long. Are you satisfied with my explanation!”

He was looking at the lawyer, who replied:

“I believe you, boy, just as I believe that Squire Irving destroyed his
second will, if he ever made one, which, without any disrespect intended
to the lady, I doubt, though she may have excellent reasons for
believing otherwise. It would have been a most unnatural thing for a
father to cast off with a legacy his only son, and knowing Squire Irving
as I did, I cannot think he would do it.”

The lawyer had forsaken the lady’s cause entirely, and wholly forgetting
herself in her wrath she burst out with—

“As to the sonship there may be a question of doubt, and if such doubt
ever crept into Squire Irving’s mind he was not a man to rest quietly,
or to leave his money to a stranger.”

Roger had not the most remote idea what the woman meant, and the lawyer
only a vague one; but Hester knew, and she sprang up like a tiger from
the chair where she had hitherto sat a quiet spectator of what was
transpiring.

“You woman,” she cried, facing Mrs. Walter Scott, with a fiery gleam in
her gray eyes, “if I could have my way, I’d turn you out of doors, bag
and baggage. If there was a doubt, who hatched it up but you, you sly,
insinuatin’ critter. I overheard you myself working upon the weak old
man, and hintin’ things you orto blush to speak of. There was no mention
made of a will then, but I know now that was what you was up to, and if
he was persuaded to the ’bominable piece of work which this gentleman,
who knows law more than I do, don’t believe, and then destroyed it,—as
he was likely to do when he came to himself,—and you, with your snaky
ways, was in New York, it has served you right, and makes me think more
and more that the universal religion is true. Not that I’ve anything
special agin’ Frank, whose wust blood he got from you, but that Roger
should be slighted by his own father is too great a dose to swaller, and
I for one shan’t stay any longer in the same room with you; so hand me
the key to the door which you locked when you thought Roger had the will
in his pocket. Maybe you’d like to search the hull coboodle of us. You
are welcome to, I’m sure.”

Mrs. Walter Scott was a good deal taken aback with this tirade. She had
heard some truths from which she shrank, and, glad to be rid of Hester
on any terms, she mechanically held out the key to the door.

But here the lawyer interposed, and said:

“Excuse me, one moment, please. Mrs. Floyd, do you remember signing this
will which I have read in your hearing?”

“Perfectly;” and Hester snapped her words off with an emphasis. “The
master was sick and afraid he might die, and he sent for your father,
who was alone with him a spell, and then he called me and my old man in,
and said we was to be witnesses to his will, and we was, Aleck and me.”

“It was strange father did not remember you, who had lived with him so
long,” Roger suggested, his generosity and sense of justice
overmastering all other emotions.

“If he had they could not have been witnesses,” the lawyer said, while
Hester rejoined:

“It ain’t strange at all; for only six weeks before, he had given us two
thousand dollars to buy the tavern stand down by the toll-gate, where
we’ve set my niece Martha up in business, who keeps as good a house as
there is in Belvidere; so you see that’s explained, and he gave us good
wages always, and kept raisin’, too, till now we have jintly more than
some ministers, with our vittles into the bargain.”

Hester was exonerating her late master from any neglect of herself and
Aleck, and in so doing she made the lawyer forget to ask if she had ever
heard of a second will made by Squire Irving. The old lawyer Schofield
would have done so, but the son was young and inexperienced, and not
given to suspecting everybody. Besides that, he liked Roger. He knew it
was right that he should be the heir, and believed he was, and that Mrs.
Walter Scott was altogether mistaken in her ideas. Still he suggested
that there could be no harm in searching among the squire’s papers. And
Mrs. Walter Scott did search, assisted by Roger, who told her of a
secret drawer in the writing-desk and opened it himself for her
inspection, finding nothing there but a time-worn letter and a few faded
flowers,—lilies of the valley,—which must have been worn in Jessie’s
hair, for there was a golden thread twisted in among the faded blossoms.
That secret drawer was the sepulchre of all the love and romance of the
old squire’s later marriage, and it seemed to both Mrs. Walter Scott and
Roger like a grave which they had sacrilegiously invaded. So they closed
it reverently, with its withered blossoms and mementos of a past which
never ought to have been. But afterward, Roger went back to the secret
drawer, and took therefrom the flowers, and the letter written by Jessie
to her aged suitor a few weeks before her marriage. These, with the
letter written on the sea, were sacred to him, and he put them away
where no curious eyes could find them. There had been a few words of
consultation between Roger and Lawyer Schofield, and then, with a hint
that he was always at Roger’s service, the lawyer had taken his leave,
remarking to Mrs. Walter Scott, as he did so:

“I thought you would find yourself mistaken; still you might investigate
a little further.”

He meant to be polite, but there was a tinge of sarcasm in his tone,
which the lady recognized, and inwardly resented. She had fallen in his
opinion, and she knew it, and carried herself loftily until he said to
Roger,—

“I had an appointment to meet your father in his library the very
evening he died. He wished to make a change in his will, and I think,
perhaps, he intended doing better by the young boy, Frank. At least,
that is possible, and you may deem it advisable to act as if you knew
that was his intention, you have an immense amount of money at your
command, for your father was the richest man in the county.”

Frank had long ago gone back to the kitchen and the baby. He had no
special interest in what they were talking about, nor was it needful
that he should have. He was safe with Roger, who, to the lawyer’s
suggestion, replied:

“I shall do Frank justice, as I am sure he would have done me, had the
tables been reversed.”

The lawyer bowed himself out, and Roger was alone with his
sister-in-law, who looked so white, and injured, and disappointed, that
he felt, to say the least, very uncomfortable in her presence. He had
not liked her manner at all, and had caught glimpses of a far worse
disposition than he had thought she possessed, while he was morally
certain that she was ready and willing to trample on all his rights, and
even cast him aloof from his home if she could. Still, he would rather
be on friendly terms with her, for Frank’s sake, if for no other, and so
he went up to her, and said:

“I know you are disappointed if you really believed father had left the
most of his money to Frank.”

“I don’t believe. I know; and there has been foul play somewhere. He
told me he had made another will, here in this very room.”

“Helen,” Roger said, calling her, as he seldom did, by her Christian
name, and having in his voice more of sorrow than anger—“Helen, why did
father wish to serve me so, when he was always so kind? What reason did
he give?”

Roger’s eyes were full of tears, and there was a grieved look in his
face as he waited his sister’s answer. Squire Irving had given _her_ no
reason for the unjust act. She had given the reason to him, making him
for a time almost a madman, but she could not give that reason to the
boy, although she had in a moment of passion hinted at it, and drawn
down Hester’s vengeance on her head. If he had not understood her then,
she would not wound him now by the cruel suspicion. Thus reasoned the
better nature of the woman, while her mean, grasping spirit suggested
that in case the will was not found, it would be better to stand well in
Roger’s good opinion. So she replied, very blandly and smoothly:

“After your father had given my husband his portion, he grew much richer
than he had ever been before, and I suppose he thought it was only fair
that Frank should have what would have come to his father if the estate
had been equally divided. I never supposed you were cut off entirely;
that _would_ have been unnatural.”

Roger was not satisfied with this explanation, for sharing equally with
Frank, and being cut off with only a legacy, were widely different
things, and her words at one time had implied that the latter was the
case. He did not, however, wish to provoke her to another outburst; and
so, with a few words to the effect that Frank should not suffer at his
hands, he bade his sister good-night, and repaired to his own room. He
had passed through a great deal, and was too tired and excited to care
even for the baby that night; and, when Hester knocked at his door, he
answered that he could not see her,—she must wait until to-morrow. So
Hester went away, saying to herself:

“He’s a right to be let alone, if he wants to be, for he is now the
master of Millbank.”




                              CHAPTER VII.
                 MILLBANK AFTER THE DAY OF THE FUNERAL.


Mrs. Walter Scott could not easily give up her belief in a later will,
and after everything about the house was quiet, and the tired inmates
asleep, she went from one vacant room to another, her slippered feet
treading lightly and giving back no sound to betray her to any listening
ear, as she glided through the lower rooms, and then ascended to the
garret, where was a barrel of old receipts and letters, and papers of no
earthly use whatever. These she examined minutely, but in vain. The
missing document was not there, and she turned to Jessie’s picture, and
was just bending down for a look at that, when a sudden noise startled
her, and, turning round, she saw a head, surmounted by a broad-frilled
cap, appearing up the stairway. It was Hester’s head, and Hester herself
came into full view, with a short night-gown on, and her feet encased in
a pair of Aleck’s felt slippers, which, being a deal too big, clicked
with every step, and made the noise Mrs. Walter Scott first heard.

“Oh, you’re at it, be you!” Hester said, putting her tallow candle down
on the floor. “I thought I heard somethin’ snoopin’ round, and got up to
see what ’twas. I guess I’ll hunt too, if you like, for I’m afraid you
might set the house afire.”

“Thank you; I’m through with my search for to-night,” was Mrs. Walter
Scott’s lofty answer, as she swept down the garret stairs past Hester
Floyd and into her own room.

There was a bitter hatred existing between these two women now, and had
the will been found, Hester’s tenure at Millbank would have hung upon a
very slender thread. But the will was not found, neither that night nor
the next day, when Mrs. Walter Scott searched openly and thoroughly with
Roger as her aid, for which Hester called him a fool, and Frank, who was
beginning to get an inkling of matters, a “spooney.” Mrs. Walter Scott
was outgeneralled, and the second day after the funeral she took her
departure and went back to Lexington Avenue, where her first act was to
dismiss the extra servant she had hired when Millbank seemed in her
grasp, while her second was to countermand her orders for so much
mourning.

If Squire Irving had left her nothing, she, of course, had nothing to
expend in crape and bombazine, and when she next appeared on Broadway,
there were pretty green strings on her straw hat, and a handsome
thread-lace veil in place of the long crape which had covered her face
at the funeral. Mrs. Walter Scott had dropped back into her place in New
York, and for a little time our story has no more to do with her
ladyship, but keeps us at Millbank, where Roger, with Col. Johnson as
his guardian, reigned the triumphant heir.

As was natural, the baby was the first object considered after the
excitement of Mrs. Walter Scott’s departure had subsided. What should be
done with it? Col. Johnson asked Roger this question in Hester’s
presence, and Roger answered at once, “I shall keep her and educate her
as if she were my sister. If Hester feels that the care will be too much
for her, I will get a nurse till the child is older.”

“Yes; and then I’ll have both nuss and baby to ’tend to,” Hester
exclaimed. “If it must stay, I’ll see to it myself, with Ruey’s help. I
can’t have a nuss under foot, doin’ nothin’.”

This was not exactly what Roger wanted. He had not yet lost sight of
that picture of the French nurse in a cap, to whom Hester did not bear
the slightest resemblance; but he saw that Hester’s plan was better than
his, and quietly gave up the French nurse and the pleasant nursery, but
he ordered the crib, and the baby-wagon and the bright blanket with it,
and then he said to Hester, “Baby must have a name,” adding that once,
when the woman in the cars was hushing it, she had called it something
which sounded like Magdalen. “That you know was mother’s second name,”
he said. “So suppose we call her ‘Jessie Magdalen;’” but against that
Hester arrayed herself so fiercely that he gave up “Jessie,” but
insisted upon “Magdalen,” and added to it his own middle name, “Lennox.”

There was a doubt in his mind as to whether she had ever been baptized,
and thinking it better to be baptized twice than not at all, he
determined to have the ceremony performed, and Mrs. Col. Johnson
consented to stand as sponsor for the child, whom Hester carried to the
church, performing well her part as nurse, and receiving back into her
arms the little Magdalen Lennox, who had crowed, and laughed, and put
her fat hand to her head, to wipe off the drops of water which fell upon
her as she was “received into Christ’s flock and signed with His sign”
upon her brow.

During the entire summer Roger remained at Millbank, where he made a few
changes, both in the grounds and in the house, which began to wear a
more modern look than during the old squire’s life. Some of the
shrubbery was rooted up, and a few of the oldest trees cut down, so that
the sunshine could find freer access to the rooms, which had rarely been
used since Jessie went away, but which Roger opened to the warmth and
sunlight of summer. On the wall, in the library, Jessie’s picture was
hung. It had been retouched and brightened up in Springfield, and the
beautiful face always seemed to smile a welcome on Roger whenever he
came where it was. On the monument in the graveyard Jessie’s name was
cut beneath her husband’s, and every Saturday Roger carried a bouquet of
flowers from the Millbank garden, and laid it on the grassy mound, in
memory, not so much of his father, as of the young mother whose grave
was in the sea. Thither he sometimes brought little Magdalen, who could
walk quite easily now, and it was not an uncommon sight, on pleasant
summer days, to see the boy seated under the evergreens which
overshadowed his father’s grave, while toddling among the gray
head-stones of the dead, or playing in the gravel-walks, was Magdalen,
with her blanket pinned about her neck, and her white sun-bonnet tied
beneath her chin. Thus the summer passed, and in the autumn Roger went
away to Andover, where he was to finish preparing for college, instead
of returning to his old tutor in St. Louis. After his departure, the
front rooms above and below were closed, and Magdalen, who took more
kindly to the parlors than to the kitchen, was taught that such things
were only for her when Master Roger was at home; and if, by chance, she
stole through an open door into the forbidden rooms, she was brought
back at once to her corner in the kitchen. Not roughly though, for
Hester Floyd was always kind to the child,—first, for Roger’s sake, and
then for the affection she herself began to feel for the little one,
whose beauty, and bright, pretty ways everybody praised.

And now, while the doors and shutters of Millbank are closed, and only
the rear portion of the building is open, we pass, without comment, over
a period of eleven years, and open the story again, on a bright day in
summer, when the sky was as blue and the air as bland as was the air and
sky of Italy, where Roger Irving was travelling.




                             CHAPTER VIII.
                       THE STRANGER IN BELVIDERE.


During the eleven years since her disappointment, Mrs. Walter Scott had
never once been to Millbank. She had seen the house several times from
the car window as she was whirled by on her way to Boston, and she
managed to keep a kind of oversight of all that was transpiring there,
but she never crossed the threshold, and had said she never would.
Frank, on the contrary, was a frequent visitor there. He bore no malice
to its inmates on account of the missing will. Roger had been very
generous with him, allowing him more than the four hundred a year, and
assisting him out of many a “deuced scrape,” as Frank termed the debts
he was constantly incurring, with no ostensible way of liquidating them
except through his _Uncle Roger_. He called him uncle frequently for
fun, and Roger always laughed good-humoredly upon his fair-haired
nephew, whom he liked in spite of his many faults.

Frank was now at Yale; but he was no student, and would have left
college the very first year but for Roger, who had more influence over
him than any other living person. Frank believed in Roger, and listened
to him as he would listen to no one else, and when at last, with his
college diploma and his profession as a lawyer, won, Roger went for two
or three years’ travel in the old world, Frank felt as if his anchorage
was swept away and he was left to float wherever the tide and his own
vacillating disposition might take him. The most of his vacations were
spent at Millbank, where he hunted in the grand old woods, with Magdalen
trudging obediently at his side in the capacity of game carrier, or
fished in the creek or river, with Magdalen to carry the worms and put
them on his hook. Frank was lazy,—terribly, fearfully lazy,—and whatever
service another would render him, he was ready to receive. So Magdalen,
whose hands and feet never seemed to tire, ministered willingly to the
city-bred young man, who teased her about her dark face and pulled her
wavy hair, and laughed at her clothes with the Hester stamp upon them,
and called her a little Gypsy, petting her one moment, and then in a
moody fit sending her away “to wait somewhere within call,” until he
wanted her. And Magdalen, who never dreamed of rebelling from the
slavery in which he held her when at Millbank, looked forward with eager
delight to his coming, and cried when he went away.

Roger she held in the utmost veneration and esteem, regarding him as
something more than mortal. She had never carried the game-bag for him,
or put worms upon his hook, for he neither fished nor hunted; but she
used to ride with him on horseback, biting her lips and winking hard to
keep down her tears and conquer her fear of the spirited animal he bade
her ride. She would have walked straight into the crater of Vesuvius if
Roger had told her to, and at his command she tried to overcome her
mortal terror of horses,—to sit and ride, and carry her reins and whip
as he taught her, until at last she grew accustomed to the big black
horse, and Roger’s commendations of her skill in managing it were a
sufficient recompense for weary hours of riding through the lanes, and
meadows, and woods of Millbank.

So, too, when Roger gave her a Latin grammar and bade her learn its
pages, she set herself at once to the task, studying day and night, and
growing feverish and thin, and nervous, until Hester interfered, and
said “a child of ten was no more fit to study Latin than she was to
build a ship, and Roger must let her alone till she was older if he did
not want to kill her.”

Then Roger, who in his love for books had forgotten that children did
not all possess his tastes or powers of endurance, put the grammar away
and took Magdalen with him to New York to a scientific lecture, of which
she did not understand a word, and during which she went fast asleep
with her head on his shoulder, and her queer little straw bonnet
dreadfully jammed and hanging down her back. Roger tied on her bonnet
when the lecture was over, and tried to straighten the pinch in front,
and never suspected that it was at all different from the other bonnets
around him. The next night he took her to Niblo’s, where she nearly went
crazy with delight; and for weeks after, her little room at Millbank was
the scene of many a pantomime, as she tried to reproduce for Bessie’s
benefit the wonderful things she had seen.

That was nearly two years before the summer day of which we write. She
had fished and hunted with Frank since then, and told him of Niblo’s as
of a place he had never seen, and said good-by to Roger, who was going
off to Europe, and who had enjoined upon her sundry things she was to do
during his absence, one of which was always to carry the Saturday’s
bouquet to his father’s grave. This practice Roger had kept up ever
since his father died, taking the flowers himself when he was at home,
and leaving orders for Hester to see that they were sent when he was
away. Magdalen, who had frequently been with him to the graveyard, knew
that the Jessie whose name was on the marble was buried in the sea, for
Roger had told her of the burning ship, and the beautiful woman who went
down with it. And with her shrewd perceptions, Magdalen had guessed that
the flowers offered weekly to the dead were more for the mother, who was
not there, than for the father, who was. And after Roger went away she
adopted the plan of taking with her two bouquets, one large and
beautiful for Jessie, and a smaller one for the old squire, whose
picture on the library-wall she did not altogether fancy.

A visit to the cemetery was always one of the duties of Saturday, and
toward the middle of the afternoon, on a bright day in July, Magdalen
started as usual with her basket of flowers on her arm. She liked going
to that little yard where the shadows from the evergreens fell so softly
upon the grass, and the white rose-bush which Roger had planted was
climbing up the tall monument and shedding its sweet perfume on the air.
There was an iron chair in the yard, where Magdalen sat down, and
divesting herself of her shoes and stockings, cooled her bare feet on
the grass and hummed snatches of songs learned from Frank, who affected
to play the guitar and accompany it with his voice. And while she is
sitting there we will give a pen-and-ink photograph of her as she was at
twelve years of age. A straight, lithe little figure, with head set so
erect upon her shoulders that it leaned back rather than forward. A
full, round face, with features very regular, except the nose, which had
a slight inclination upward, and which Frank teasingly called “a
turn-up.” Masses of dark hair, which neither curled nor lay straight
upon the well-shaped head, but rippled in soft waves all over it, and
was kept short in the neck by Hester, who “didn’t believe much in hair,”
and who often deplored Magdalen’s “heavy mop,” until the child was old
enough to attend to it herself. A clear, brown complexion, with a rich,
healthful tint on cheek and lip, and a fairer, lighter coloring upon the
low, wide forehead; dark, hazel eyes, which, under strong excitement,
would grow black as night and flash forth fiery gleams, but which
ordinarily were soft and mild and bright, as the stars to which Frank
likened them. The eyes were the strongest point in Magdalen’s face, and
made her very handsome in spite of the outlandish dress in which Hester
always arrayed her, and the rather awkward manner in which she carried
her hands and elbows. Hester ignored fashions. If Magdalen was only
clean and neat, that was all she thought necessary, and she put the
child in clothes old enough for herself, and Frank often ridiculed the
queer-looking dresses buttoned up before, and far too long for a girl of
Magdalen’s age.

Except for Frank’s teasing remarks, Magdalen would have cared very
little for her personal appearance, and as he was in New Haven now she
was having a nice time alone in the cemetery, with her shoes and
stockings off to cool her feet, and her bonnet off to cool her head,
round which her short, damp hair was curling more than usual. She was
thinking of Jessie, and wondering how she happened to be on the ocean,
and where she was going, and she did not at first see the stranger
coming down the walk in the direction of the yard where she was sitting.
He was apparently between fifty and sixty, for his hair was very gray,
and there were deep-cut lines about his eyes and mouth; but he was very
fine-looking still, and a man to be noticed and commented upon among a
thousand.

He was coming directly to Squire Irving’s lot, where he stood a moment
with his hand upon the iron fence before Magdalen saw him. With a blush
and a start she sprang up, and tried, by bending her knees, to make her
dress cover her bare feet, which, nevertheless, were plainly visible, as
she modestly answered the stranger’s questions.

“Good afternoon, Miss,” he said, touching his hat to her as politely as
if she had been a princess, instead of a barefoot girl. “You have chosen
a novel, but very pleasant place for an afternoon reverie. Whose yard is
this, and whose little girl are you?”

“I am Mr. Roger’s little girl, and this is Squire Irving’s lot. That’s
his monument,” Magdalen replied; and at the sound of her voice and the
lifting up of her eyes the stranger looked curiously at her.

“What is your name, and what are you doing here?” he asked her next; and
she replied, “I came with flowers for the grave. I bring them every
Saturday, and my name is Magdalen.”

This time the stranger started, and without waiting to go round to the
gate, sprang over the iron fence and came to Magdalen’s side.

“Magdalen whom?” he asked. “Magdalen Rogers?”

“No, sir. Magdalen Lennox. I haven’t any father nor mother, and I live
up at Millbank. You can just see it through the trees. Squire Irving
used to live there, but since he died it belongs to Mr. Roger, and he
has gone to Europe, and told me to bring flowers every Saturday to the
graves. That’s his father,” she continued, pointing to the squire’s
name, “and that,” pointing to Jessie’s name, “is his mother; only she is
not here, you know. She died on the sea.”

If the stranger had not been interested before, he was now, and he went
close to the stone where Jessie’s name was cut, and stood there for a
moment without saying a word to the little girl at his side. His back
was toward her, and she could not see his face until he turned to her
again, and said,—

“And you live there at Millbank, where—where Mrs. Irving did. You
certainly could not have been there when she died.”

Magdalen colored scarlet, and stood staring at him with those bright,
restless, eager eyes, which so puzzled and perplexed him. She had heard
from Hester some of the particulars of her early life, while from her
young girl friends she had heard a great deal more which distressed and
worried her, and sent her at last to Roger for an explanation. And
Roger, thinking it was best to do so, had told her the whole truth, and
given into her keeping the locket which she had worn about her neck, and
the dress in which she came to Millbank. She was old enough to
understand in part her true position, and she was very sensitive with
regard to her early history. That there was something wrong about both
her parents, she knew; but still there was a warm, tender spot in her
heart for her mother, who, Roger had said, bent over her with a kiss and
a few whispered words of affection, ere abandoning her in the cars.
Magdalen could sometimes feel that kiss upon her cheek and see the
restless, burning eyes which Roger described so minutely. There was a
look like them in her own eyes, and she was glad of it, and glad her
hair was dark and glossy, as Roger said her mother’s was. She was proud
to look _like_ her mother; though she was not proud _of_ her mother, and
she never mentioned her to any one save Roger, or alluded to the time
when she had been deserted. So when the stranger’s words seemed to ask
how long she had been at Millbank, she hesitated, and at last replied:

“Of course I was not born when Mrs. Irving died. I’m only twelve years
old. I was a poor little girl, with nobody to care for me, and Mr. Roger
took me to live with him. He is not very old, though. He is only
twenty-six; and his nephew Frank is twenty-one in August.”

The stranger smiled upon the quaint, old-fashioned little girl, whose
eyes, fastened so curiously upon him, made him slightly uneasy.

“Magdalen,” he said at last, but more as if speaking to himself and
repeating a name which had once been familiar to him.

“What, sir?” was Magdalen’s reply, which recalled him back to the
present.

He must say something to her, and so he asked:

“Who gave you the name of Magdalen? It is a very pretty name.”

There was a suavity and winning graciousness in his manner, which, young
as she was, Magdalen felt, and it inclined her to be more familiar and
communicative than she would otherwise have been to a stranger.

“It was _her_ second name,” she said, touching the word Jessie on the
marble. “And Mr. Roger gave it to me when I went to live with him.”

“Then you were named for Mrs. Irving?” and the stranger involuntarily
drew a step nearer to the little girl, on whose hair his hand rested for
a moment. “Do they talk much of her at Millbank?”

“No; nobody but Mr. Roger, when he is at home. Her picture is in the
library, and I think it is so lovely, with the pearls on her neck and
arms, and the flowers in her hair. She must have been beautiful.”

“Yes, very beautiful,” fell mechanically from the stranger’s lips; and
Magdalen asked, in some surprise: “Did you know her, sir?”

“I judge from your description,” was the reply; and then he asked “if
the flowers were for Mrs. Irving.”

“The large bouquet is. I always make a difference, because I think Mr.
Roger loved her best,” Magdalen said.

Just then there came across the fields the sound of the village clock
striking the hour of five, and Magdalen started, exclaiming, “I must go
now; Hester will be looking for me.”

The stranger saw her anxious glance at her stockings and shoes, and
thoughtfully turned his back while she gathered them up and thrust them
into her basket.

“You’d better put them on,” he said, when he saw the disposition she had
made of them. “The gravel stones will hurt your feet, and there may be
thistles, too.”

He seemed very kind indeed, and walked to another enclosure, while
Magdalen put on her stockings and shoes and then arose to go. She
thought he would accompany her as far as the highway, sure, and began to
feel a little elated at the prospect of being seen in company with so
fine a gentleman by old Bettie, the gate-keeper, and her granddaughter
Lottie. But he was in no hurry to leave the spot.

“This is a very pretty cemetery; I believe I will walk about a little,”
he said, as he saw that the girl seemed to be waiting for him.

Magdalen knew this was intended as a dismissal, and walked rapidly away.
Pausing at the stile over which she passed into the street, she looked
back and saw the stranger,—not walking about the grounds, but standing
by the monument and apparently leaning his head upon it. Had she passed
that place an hour later, she would have missed from its cup of water
the largest bouquet, the one she had brought for Mrs. Irving, and would
have missed, too, the half-open rose which hung very near Jessie’s name.
But she would have charged the theft to the children by the gate, who
sometimes did rob the grave of flowers, and not to the splendid-looking
man with the big gold chain, who had spoken so kindly to her, and of
whom her head was full as she went back to Millbank, where she was met
by Hester with an open letter in her hand, bearing a foreign post-mark.




                              CHAPTER IX.
                          A STIR AT MILLBANK.


The letter was from Roger, and in her eagerness to hear from him,
Magdalen forgot the stranger who had asked so many questions.

Roger was in Dresden, and very well; but his letter did not relate so
much to himself and his journeyings as to matters at home. Frank, who
had visited Millbank in April, had written to Roger a not very
satisfactory account of Hester’s management of Magdalen.

“The girl is growing up a perfect Hottentot, with no more manners or
style than Dame Floyd herself; and it seems a pity, when she is so
bright and capable and handsome, and might with proper training make a
splendid woman. But what can you expect of her, brought up by that
superannuated Hester, who keeps her in the most outlandish clothes I
ever saw, and lets her go barefoot half the time, till her feet are
spreading so, that after a little they will be as flat and broad as a
mackerel. Besides that, I saw her trying to milk, which you know will
spoil her hands sooner than anything else in creation. My advice is that
you send her to school, say here to New Haven, if you like. Mrs. Dana’s
is a splendid school for young ladies. I would write at once to Mrs.
Floyd if I were you. And, Roger, for thunder’s sake, tell her to let
Mrs. Johnson or her daughter see to Maggie’s wardrobe. She would be the
laughing-stock of the town if she were to come here rigged out _à la
Floyd_.”

This and much more Frank had written to Roger, who, in a milder form,
wrote it back to Hester, telling her that Magdalen must go away, and
suggesting New Haven as a proper place where to send her.

Hester was a very little indignant when she read this letter, which,
without directly charging her with neglect, still implied that in some
things concerning Magdalen she had been remiss, and to Bessie, the
housemaid, she was freeing her mind pretty thoroughly when Magdalen came
in and began to question her eagerly with regard to Roger, and to ask if
the letter was for her.

“No,” Hester replied, “but it’s about you. I’m too old-fashioned to
fetch you up any longer, and you’ve got to be sent away. The district
school ain’t good enough, and you are to go to New Haven and learn
manners, and not go barefoot, nor milk, and put your feet and hands out
of shape. Haven’t I told you forty times, Magdalen Lennox, to put on
your shoes?”

“Yes, fifty,” Magdalen replied, in that peculiar winning way which she
had of conciliating Hester when in one of her querulous moods. “What is
it about my hands and feet, let me see?”

And coming close to Hester, she laid one hand soothingly on the old
woman’s shoulder, and with the other took Roger’s letter, which she read
through from beginning to end; then, with a passionate exclamation, she
threw it from her, saying:

“It is Frank who put Mr. Roger up to this. I won’t go away from Millbank
to horrid old New Haven, where the girls sit, and walk, and act just so,
with their elbows in and their toes out. I hate New Haven, I hate Frank,
I hate everybody but you.”

Magdalen’s eyes were flashing, and her hand deepened its grasp on
Hester, who cast upon the young girl a look which told how full of love
her old heart was for the child whom she had cared for and watched over
since the night she first came to Millbank. No one could live with
Magdalen and not love her. Generous, outspoken, and wholly truthful,
warm-hearted and playful as a kitten, she had wound herself around every
fibre of Hester’s heart, until the woman hardly knew which was dearer to
her,—Magdalen or Roger. She would miss the former most. Millbank would
be very lonely without those busy little bare feet of which Roger
disapproved, and that blithe, merry voice which filled the house with
melody, and it was partly a dread of the loneliness which Magdalen’s
absence would leave which prompted Hester to such an outburst as had
followed the reading of Roger’s letter; and when Magdalen took up the
theme, vehemently declaring she would never go to New Haven, Hester felt
a thrill of joy and pride in the girl who preferred her to New Haven and
its stylish young ladies.

Her soberer second thoughts, however, were that Roger’s wishes would
have to be considered, and Magdalen be obliged to yield. But Magdalen
thought differently and persisted in saying she would never go to New
Haven, and subject herself to the criticisms of that _Alice Grey_, about
whom Frank had talked so much on his last visit to Millbank.

He had only stayed a day or two, and Magdalen had thought him changed,
and, as she fancied, not for the better. He had always teased her about
her grandmotherly garb, but his teasings this time were more like
earnest criticisms, and he was never tired of holding up _Alice Grey_ as
a model for all young girls to imitate. She was very pretty, he said,
with soft blue eyes and rich brown hair, which was almost a chestnut,
and she had such graceful, lady-like manners, that all the college boys
were more in love with her,—a little maiden of fourteen,—than with the
older young ladies in Miss Dana’s school.

Heretofore, when Frank had visited Millbank, Magdalen had been all in
all, and she resented his frequent allusion to one whom he seemed to
consider so superior to herself, and felt relieved when he went back to
his Alice, with her chestnut hair, and her soft blue eyes, and wax-like
complexion.

Magdalen hated her own dark skin for a little after that, and taught by
Bessie, tried what frequent washings in buttermilk would do for it; but
Hester’s nose, which had a most remarkable knack for detecting smells
even where none existed, soon ferreted out the hidden jar containing
Magdalen’s cosmetic, and, all hopes of a complexion like Alice Grey’s
were swept away with the buttermilk which the remorseless Hester threw
into the pig-pen as its most fitting place. After a while the fever
subsided, and Alice Grey ceased to trouble Magdalen until she was
brought to mind by Roger’s letter.

That she would not go to New Haven, Magdalen was resolved. If Roger
wanted her to try some other school she would, she said, but New Haven
was not to be considered for a moment; and so Hester wrote to Roger an
account of the manner with which his proposition had been received, and
asked him to suggest some other school for his ward.

In her excitement Magdalen had entirely forgotten the stranger in the
graveyard, nor was he recalled to her mind until the next day, when,
with Hester Floyd, she walked demurely to the little church where she
was in the habit of worshipping. It was a beautiful morning, and the air
was laden with the sweet perfume of the clover blossoms and the new-mown
hay, and Magdalen looked unusually bright and pretty in her light French
calico and little white sack, which the village dressmaker had made, and
which bore a more modern stamp than was usual to Hester’s handiwork. Her
shoes and stockings were all right this time, and her hands were encased
in a pair of cotton gloves, which, though a deal too large, were
nevertheless gloves, and kept her hands from tanning. And Magdalen, with
her prayer-book and sprig of caraway, felt very nice as she went up the
aisle to Squire Irving’s pew, where, in imitation of Hester she dropped
on her knees and said her few words of prayer, while her thoughts were
running upon the gentleman in front, the stranger of the graveyard, who
turned his head as she came in with a half nod of recognition.

He seemed very devout as the services proceeded, and never had Magdalen
heard any one respond so loud in the Psalter, or seen any one bow so low
in the Creed as he did; while in the chants and psalms he almost drowned
the choir itself, as his head went up and back as if it were following
his spirit, which, judging from his manner, was borne almost to Pisgah’s
top.

“He must be an awful pious man. I shouldn’t wonder if he was a minister,
and should preach this evening,” Magdalen thought as she watched him,
and, awed somewhat by his presence, she let her peppermint lozenges stay
in her pocket, and only nibbled a little at the sprig of caraway when
sure he would not see her.

She did not know that he had noticed her at all after the first glance
of recognition, until the last chant, when her clear, sweet voice joined
in the singing, making him pause a moment to listen, while a look of
pleased surprise came into his face as he turned toward her.

He had not seen Hester distinctly, for she was behind him; but Hester
saw him and pronounced him some “starched-up city buck,” and thought his
coat too short for so old a man, and his neck too big and red.

“Jest the chap she shouldn’t want to have much to do with,” was her
mental comment, and his loud “Good Lord, deliver us” sounded to the
shrewd old woman like mockery, for she did not believe he felt it a bit.

Hester did not like the stranger’s appearance, but she wondered who he
was, and when church was out, and she was walking down the street with
her niece who kept the public house, she spoke of him, and learned that
he was stopping at the Montauk, as the little hotel was named. He came
about noon the previous day, Martha said; had called for their best
room, and drank wine with his dinner, and smoked a sight of cigars, and
had a brandy sling sent up to him in the evening. She did not remember
his name, and she guessed he must have a great deal of money from his
appearance. He was going to New York in the night train, and that was
all she knew. Hester made no special remark, and as they just then
reached the cross-roads where their paths diverged, she bade her niece
good-day, and walked on towards Millbank.

Meantime, Magdalen was reciting her Sunday-school lesson, and finishing
her caraway and lozenges, and telling her companions that she was going
away to school by and by, as Mr. Roger wrote she must. The school
question did not seem as formidable to-day as yesterday. Miss Nellie
Johnson, who represented the first young lady in town, had been to
Charlestown Seminary, and so had Mr. Fullerton’s daughters and Lilian
Marsh, who was an orphan and an heiress. On the whole, Magdalen had come
to think it would set her up a little to go away, and she talked quite
complacently about it, and said she guessed it would be to Charlestown,
where Miss Johnson had been graduated; but she made no mention of New
Haven or Alice Grey, though the latter was in her mind when she sang the
closing hymn, and went out of the church into the beautiful sunshine.
The day was so fine, and the air so clear, that Magdalen thought to
prolong her walk by going round by the graveyard, as she sometimes did
on a Sunday. The quiet, shaded spot where Squire Irving was buried just
suited her Sunday moods, and she would far rather lie there on the
grass, than sit in the kitchen at Millbank, and recite her catechism to
Hester or read a sermon to Aleck, whose eyes were growing dim.

It would seem that another than herself liked the shadow of the
evergreens and the seclusion of Squire Irving’s lot, for as Magdalen
drew near the gate, she saw the figure of a man reclining upon the
grass, while a feathery ring which curled up among the branches of the
trees denoted that he was smoking. Magdalen did not think it just the
thing to smoke there among the graves, and the stranger fell a little in
her estimation, for it was the stranger, and he arose at once, and bade
Magdalen good afternoon, and called her _Miss Rogers_, as if he thought
that was her name.

“I find this place cooler than my hot room at the Montauk,” he said: and
then he spoke of having seen her at church, and asked who had taught her
to sing.

“Mr. Roger,” she replied. “He used to sing with me before he went away.
He has a splendid voice, and is a splendid scholar, too.”

And then, as that reminded her of New Haven and Alice Grey, she
continued: “We heard from Mr. Roger yesterday, and he said I was to go
to school in New Haven, but I don’t want to go there a bit.”

“Why not?” the stranger asked; and Magdalen replied:

“Oh, because I don’t. Frank is there, and he told me so much about a
Miss Alice Grey, and wants me to be like her; and I can’t, and I don’t
want to know her, for she would laugh at me, and I should be sure to
hate her.”

“Hate Alice! Impossible!” dropped involuntarily from the stranger’s
lips, and turning upon him her bright eyes, Magdalen said:

“Do you know Frank’s Alice Grey?”

“I know one Alice Grey, but whether it is Frank’s Alice, I cannot tell.
I should devoutly hope not,” was the stranger’s answer; and Magdalen
noticed that there was a disturbed look on his face, and that he forgot
to resume his cigar, which lay awhile smouldering in the grass, and
finally went out.

He did not seem disposed to talk much after that, and Magdalen kept very
quiet, wondering who he was, until her attention was suddenly diverted
into another channel by noticing, for the first time, the absence of the
bouquet which she had brought the day before and left upon the grave.

“Somebody has stole my flowers! I’ll bet it’s Jim Bartlett. He’s always
doing something bad,” she exclaimed, and she searched among the grass
for the missing bouquet.

The stranger helped her hunt, and not finding it, said he presumed some
one had taken it,—that _Jim_ was a bad boy to steal, and Magdalen must
talk to him and teach him the eighth commandment. Anxious to confront
and accuse the thieving Jim, Magdalen left the graveyard, and was soon
engaged in a hot battle with the boy, who denied all knowledge of the
flowers, declaring he had not been in the yard for a week, and throwing
tufts of grass and gravel stones after her as she finally left him and
walked away, wondering, if Jim did not take the flowers, who did. She
never dreamed of suspecting the stranger, or guessed that when he left
Belvidere there was in one corner of his satchel the veritable bouquet
which she had arranged in memory of poor Jessie, or that the sight of
those faded flowers had touched a tender chord in his heart, and made
him for several days kinder and gentler to a poor, worn, weary invalid,
whom nothing in all the world had power to quiet or soothe.




                               CHAPTER X.
                           FRANK AT MILLBANK.


Four days later Magdalen received a letter from Frank, who was
inconsolable. Alice Grey had left school suddenly, without giving him a
chance to say good-by. Why she had gone or where, he did not know. He
only knew she _was_ gone, and that he thought college a bore, and New
Haven a stupid place, and was mighty glad that vacation was so close at
hand, as he wanted to come up to Millbank and fish again in the river.

“I think he might just as well spend a part of his time at home, as to
be lazin’ ’round here for me to wait on,” Hester said, when Magdalen
communicated the news of Frank’s projected visit to her.

Hester did not favor Frank’s frequent visits to Millbank. They made her
too much work, for what with opening the dining-room and bringing out
the silver, and getting extra meals, and seeing to his sleeping room,
and ironing his seven fine shirts every week, with as many collars and
pairs of socks, to say nothing of linen coats and pants, and white
vests, she had her own and Bessie’s hands quite full.

“Then, too, Magdalen was jest good for nothin’ when he was there,” she
said, “and made a deal more work; for, of course, she must eat with the
young gentleman instead of out in the kitchen, as was her custom when
they were alone; and it took more time to cook for two than one.”

Of Hester’s opinion Frank knew nothing, and he came to Millbank one
delightful morning after a heavy shower of the previous night, when the
air was pure and sweet with the scent of the grass just cut on the lawn,
and the perfume of the flowers blooming in such profusion in the garden.
Millbank was beautiful to the tired, lazy young college student, who
hated books and tutors, and rules and early recitations, and was glad to
get away from them all and revel awhile at Millbank. He felt perfectly
at home there, and always called for what he wanted, and ordered the
servants with as much assurance as if he had been the master. He had not
forgotten about the will. He understood it far better now than he had
done when, a little white-haired boy, he fidgeted at his mother’s side
and longed to go back to the baby in the candle-box. He had heard every
particular many a time from his mother, who still adhered to her olden
belief that there was another will which, if not destroyed, would one
day be found.

“I wish it would hurry up, then,” Frank had sometimes said, for with his
expensive habits, four hundred dollars a year seemed a very paltry sum.

In his wish that “it would hurry up,” he intended no harm to Roger.
Frank was not often guilty of reasoning or thinking very deeply about
anything, and it did not occur to him how disastrously the finding of
the will which gave him Millbank would result for Roger. He only knew
that he wanted money, and unconsciously to himself had formed a habit of
occasionally wondering if the missing will ever would be found. This was
always in New York or New Haven, when he wanted something beyond his
means or had some old debt to pay. At Millbank, where he was free from
care, with his debts in the distance and plenty of servants and horses
at his command, he did not often think of the will, though the
possibility that there was one might have added a little to his assured
manner, which was far more like one who had a right to command than
Roger’s had ever been.

Magdalen was waiting for him by the gate at the end of the avenue, on
the afternoon, when, with his carpet-bag in hand, he came leisurely up
the street from the depot, thinking as he came how beautiful the
Millbank grounds were looking, and what a “lucky dog” Roger was to have
stepped into so fair an inheritance without any exertion of his own. And
with these thoughts came a remembrance of the will, and Frank began to
plan what he would do if it should ever be found. He would share equally
with Roger, he said. He would not stint him to four hundred a year. He
would let him live at Millbank just the same, and Magdalen, too,
provided his mother did not raise too many objections; and that reminded
him of what his mother had said to him that morning as he sat,
breakfasting with her, in the same little room where we first saw her.

Mrs. Walter Scott had not been in a very amiable mood when she came down
to breakfast that morning. Eleven years of the wear and tear of
fashionable life had changed her from the fair, smooth-faced woman of
twenty-eight into a rather faded woman of thirty-nine, who still had
some pretensions to beauty, but who found that she did not attract quite
so much attention as she used to do a few years ago, when she was
younger, and Frank was not so tall, and so fearful a proof that her
youthful days were in the past. Her hair still fell in long limp curls
about her face, but part of its brightness and luxuriance was gone, and
this morning, as she arranged it in a stronger light than usual, she
discovered to her horror more than one white hair showing here and there
among the brown, and warning her that middle age was creeping on, while
the same strong light showed her how lines were deepening across her
forehead and about her eyes, effects more of dissipation and late hours
than of Father Time. Mrs. Walter Scott did not like to grow old and gray
and ugly and poor with all the rest, as she felt that she was doing. Her
house in Lexington Avenue could only afford her a shelter. It would not
feed or clothe her, or pay her bills at Saratoga or Long Branch or
Newport. Neither would the interest of the ten thousand dollars given
her by Squire Irving, and she had long ago begun to use the principal,
and had nothing to rely on when that was gone except Roger’s generosity,
and the possibility of the lost will turning up at last. She was wanting
to go to Long Branch this summer; her dear friends were all going, and
had urged her to join them, but her account at the bank was too low to
admit of that, and yesterday she had given her final answer, and seen
the last of her set depart without her. She had not hinted to them the
reason for her refusal to join them. She had said she did not care for
Long Branch, and when they exclaimed against her remaining in the dusty
city, she had mentioned Millbank and the possibility of her going there
for the month of August. She did not really mean it; but when Frank, who
had only been home from college three days, told her at the breakfast
table that he was going to Millbank after pure air, and rich sweet
cream, which was a weakness of his, she felt a longing to go, too,—a
desire for the cool house and pleasant grounds, to say nothing of the
luxuries which were to be had there in so great abundance. But since the
morning of her departure from Millbank she had received no invitation to
cross its threshold, and had not seen Roger over half a dozen times. He
felt that she disliked him, and kept out of her way, stopping always at
a hotel when in New York, instead of going to her house on Lexington
Avenue. He had called there, however, and taken tea the day before he
sailed for Europe, and Mrs. Walter Scott remembered with pleasure that
she had been very affable on that occasion, and pressed him to spend the
night. Surely, after that, she might venture to Millbank, and she hinted
as much to Frank, who would rather she should stay where she was. But he
was not quite unfilial enough to say so. He only suggested that an
invitation from the proper authorities might be desirable before she
took so bold a step.

“You used to snub Roger awfully,” he said; “and if he was like anybody
else, he wouldn’t forget it in a hurry; but, then, he isn’t like anybody
else. He’s the best-hearted and most generous chap I ever knew.”

“Generous!” Mrs. Walter Scott repeated, with a tinge of sarcasm in her
voice.

“Yes, generous,” said Frank. “He has always allowed me more than the
will said he must, and he’s helped me out of more than forty scrapes. I
say, again, he is the most generous chap I ever knew.”

“I hope he will prove it in a few weeks, when you are of age, by giving
you more than that five thousand named in the will,” was Mrs. Walter
Scott’s next remark. “Frank,”—and she lowered her voice lest the walls
should hear and report,—“we are _poor_. This house and three thousand
dollars are all we have in the world; and unless Roger does something
handsome for you, there is no alternative for us but to mortgage the
house, or sell it, and acknowledge our poverty to the world. I have sold
your father’s watch and his diamond cross.”

“Mother!” Frank exclaimed, his tone indicative of his surprise and
indignation.

“I had to pay Bridget’s wages, and defray the expense of that little
party I gave last winter,” was the lady’s apology, to which Frank
responded:

“Confound your party! People as poor as we are have no business with
parties. Sell father’s watch! and I was intending to claim it myself
when I came of age. It’s too bad! You’ll be selling me next! I’ll be
hanged if it isn’t deuced inconvenient to be so poor! I mean to go to
Millbank and stay. I’m seldom troubled with the blues when there.”

“I wish you could get me an invitation to go there, too,” Mrs. Walter
Scott said. “It will look so queer to stay in the city all summer, as I
am likely to do. I should suppose Roger would want somebody besides old
Hester to look after Magdalen. She must be a large girl now.”

It was the first sign of interest Mrs. Walter Scott had shown in
Magdalen, and Frank, who liked the girl, followed it up by expatiating
upon her good qualities, telling how bright and smart she was, and how
handsome she would be if only she could be dressed decently. Then he
told her of Roger’s intention to send her to school, and after a few
more remarks arose from the table and began his preparations for
Millbank. Frank was usually very light-hearted and hopeful, but there
was a weight on his spirits, and his face wore a gloomy look all the way
from New York to Hartford. But it began to clear as Millbank drew near.
There was his Eldorado, and by the time the station was reached, he had
forgotten the impending mortgage, and his father’s watch, and his own
poverty. It all came back, however, with a thought of the will, and he
found himself wishing most devoutly that the missing document could be
found, or else that Roger would do the handsome thing, and come down
with a few thousands on his twenty-first birthday, now only three weeks
in the distance. The sight of Magdalen, however, in her new white
ruffled apron, with her hair curling in rings about her head, and her
great round eyes dancing with joy, diverted his mind from Roger and the
will, and scattered the blues at once.

“Oh; Mag, is that you?” he exclaimed, coming quickly to her side. “How
bright and pretty you look!”

And the tall young man bent down to kiss the little girl, who was very
glad to see him, and who told him how dull it had been at Millbank, and
how Aleck said there was good fishing now in the creek, and a great many
squirrels in the woods, though she did not want him to kill them, and
that he was going to have the blue room instead of his old one, which
was damp from a leak around the chimney; that she had put lots of
flowers in it, and a photograph of herself, in a little frame made of
twigs. This last she had meant to keep a secret, and surprise the young
man, who was sure to be so delighted. But she had let it out, and she
rattled on about it, till the house was reached, and Frank stood in the
blue room, where the wonderful picture was.

“Here, Frank, this is it. This is me;” and she directed his attention at
once to the picture of herself, sitting up very stiff and prim, with
mitts on her hands, and Hester’s best collar pinned around her
high-necked dress, and Bessie’s handkerchief, trimmed with cotton lace,
fastened conspicuously at her belt.

Frank laughed a loud, hearty laugh, which had more of ridicule in it
than approval; and Magdalen, who knew him so well, detected the
ridicule, and knew he was making fun of what she thought so nice.

“You don’t like it, and I got it on purpose for you and Mr. Roger, and
sold strawberries to pay for it, because Hester said a present we earned
ourselves was always worth more than if we took somebody else’s money to
buy it,” Magdalen said, her lip beginning to quiver and her eyes to fill
with tears.

“The man was a bungler who took you in that stiff position,” Frank
replied, “and your dress is too old. I’ll show you one I have of Alice
Grey, and maybe take you to Springfield, where you can sit just as she
does.”

This did not mend the matter much, and Magdalen felt as if something had
been lost from the brightness of the day, and wondered if Roger too
would laugh at her photograph, which had gone to him in Hester’s letter.
Frank knew he had wounded her, and was very kind and gracious to her by
way of making amends, and gave her the book with colored plates which he
had bought for Alice Grey just before she left New Haven so suddenly. It
happened to be in his trunk, which was brought from the station that
night, and he blessed his good stars that it was there, and gave it as a
peace-offering to Magdalen, whose face cleared entirely; and who next
day went with him down to the old haunt by the river, and fastened to
his hook the worms she dug before he was up; and told him all about the
stranger in the graveyard, and about her going to school. And then she
asked him about Alice Grey, and the picture which he had of her.

“Did she give it to you?” Magdalen asked; but Frank affected not to hear
her, and pretended to be busy with something which hurt his foot. He did
not care to tell her that he had bought the picture at the gallery where
it was taken. He would rather she should think Alice gave it to him, and
after a moment he took it from his pocket and handed it to Magdalen, who
stood for a long time gazing at it without saying a word. It was the
picture of a sweet-faced young girl, whose short, chestnut hair rippled
in waves all over her head just as Magdalen’s did. Her dress was a white
muslin, with clusters of tucks nearly to the waist, and her little
rosetted slipper showed below the hem. Her head was leaning upon one
hand, and the other held a spray of flowers, while around her were
pictures, and vases, and statuettes, with her straw hat lying at her
feet, where she had evidently thrown it when she sat down to rest. It
was a beautiful picture, and nothing could be more graceful than Alice’s
attitude, or afford a more striking contrast to the stiff position of
poor Mag in that picture on Frank’s table, in the blue room. Magdalen
saw the difference at once, and ceased to wonder at Frank’s
non-appreciation of her photograph. It _was_ a botch, compared with
Alice’s, and she herself was a botch, an awkward, unsightly thing in her
long dress and coarse shoes, two sizes too big for her, such as she
always insisted upon wearing for fear of pinching her toes. She had them
on now, and a pair of stockings which wrinkled on the top of her foot,
and she glanced first at them and then at the delicate slipper in the
picture, and the small round waist, and pretty tucked skirt, and then,
greatly to Frank’s amazement, burst into a flood of tears.

“I don’t wonder you like her best,” she said, when Frank asked what was
the matter. “I don’t look like that. I can’t, I haven’t any slippers,
nor any muslin dress; and if I had, Hester wouldn’t let me have it
tucked, it’s such hard work to iron it. Alice has a mother, I know,—a
good, kind mother, to take care of her and make her look like other
little girls. Oh, I wish her mother was mine, or I had one just like
her.”

Alas, poor Magdalen. She little guessed the truth, or dreamed how dark a
shadow lay across the pathway of pretty Alice Grey. She only thought of
her as handsome and graceful and happy in mother and friends, and she
wept on for a moment, while Frank tried to comfort her.

There was no more fishing that day, for Maggie’s head began to ache, and
they went back to Millbank, across the pleasant fields, in the quiet of
the summer afternoon. Frank missed Magdalen’s photograph from his table
the next day, and had he been out by the little brook which ran through
the grounds, he would have seen the fragments of it floating down the
stream, with Magdalen standing by and watching them silently. They
fished again after a day or two, and hunted in the woods and sat
together beneath an old gnarled oak where Frank grew confidential, and
told Magdalen of his moneyed troubles, and wondered if Roger would allow
him more than five thousand when he came of age. And then he
inadvertently alluded to the missing will, and told Magdalen about it,
and said it might be well enough for her to hunt for it occasionally, as
she had access to all parts of the house. And Magdalen promised that she
would, without a thought of how the finding of it might affect Roger.
She would not for the world have harmed one whom she esteemed and
venerated as she did Roger, but he was across the sea, and Frank had her
ear and her sympathy. It would be a fine thing to find the will,
particularly as Frank had promised her a dress like Alice Grey’s and a
piano, if she succeeded.

Frank was not a scoundrel, as some reader may be ready to suppose. He
had no idea that the finding of the will would ruin Roger. He had
received no such impression from his mother. She had not thought best to
tell him all she believed, and had only insinuated that the missing will
was more in his favor than the one then in force. Frank wanted money,—a
great deal of money, and his want was growing constantly, and so he
casually recommended Magdalen to hunt for the will, and then for a time
gave the subject no more thought. But not so with Magdalen. She dreamed
of the will by night, and hunted for it by day, when Frank did not claim
her attention, until at last Hester stumbled upon her turning over the
identical barrel of papers which Mrs. Walter Scott had once looked
through.

“In the name of the people, what are you doing?” she asked; and
Magdalen, who never thought of keeping her intentions a secret, replied,
“I’m looking for that will which Mrs. Walter Scott says Squire Irving
made before he died.”

For an instant Hester was white as a ghost, and her voice was thick with
passion or fright, as she exclaimed, “A nice business, after all Roger
has done for you, and a pretty pickle you’d be in, too, if such a will
could be found. Don’t you know you’d be hustled out of this house in
less than no time? You’d be a beggar in the streets. Put up them papers
quick, and don’t let me catch you rummagin’ again. If Frank is goin’ to
put such notions into your head, he’d better stay away from Millbank.
Come with me, I say!”

Hester was terribly excited, and Magdalen looked at her curiously, while
there flashed across her mind a thought, which yet was hardly a thought,
that, if there _was_ a will, Hester knew something of it. Let a woman
once imagine there is a secret or a mystery in the house, and she seldom
rests until she has ferreted it out. So Magdalen, though not a woman,
had the instincts of one, and her interest in the lost document was
doubled by Hester’s excitement, but she did not look any more that day,
nor for many succeeding ones.

On Frank’s birthday there came letters from Roger, and the same train
which brought them brought also Mrs. Walter Scott. She had found the
city unendurable with all her acquaintance away, and had ventured to
come unasked to Millbank. Hester was not glad to see her. Since finding
Magdalen in the garret, she had suspected Frank of all manner of evil
designs, and now his mother had come to help him carry them out. She had
no fears of their succeeding. She knew they would not; but she did not
want them there, and she spoke very short and crisp to Mrs. Walter
Scott, and was barely civil to her. Mrs. Walter Scott, on the contrary,
was extremely urbane and sweet. She did not feel as assured as she had
done when last at Millbank. There was nothing of the mistress about her
now. She was all smiles and softness, and gentleness, and called Hester
“My dear Mrs. Floyd,” and squeezed her hand, and told her how well and
young she was looking, and petted Magdalen, and ran her white fingers
through her rings of hair, and said it was partly on her account she had
come to Millbank.

“I heard from Frank that she was to go to school in the autumn, and
knowing what a bore it would be for you, Mrs. Floyd, to see to her
wardrobe, with all the rest you have to do, I ventured to come,
especially as I have been longing to see the old place once more. How
beautiful it is looking, and how nicely you and your good husband have
kept everything! How is Mr. Floyd?”

Hester knew there was a good deal of what she called “soft-soap” in all
the lady said; but kind words go a great ways with everybody, and Hester
insensibly relaxed her stiffness and went herself with Mrs. Walter Scott
to her room and opened the shutters, and brought clean towels for the
rack, and asked if her guest would have a lunch or wait till dinner was
ready.

“Oh, I’ll wait, of course. I do not mean to give you one bit of
trouble,” was the suave reply, and Hester departed, wondering to herself
at the change, and if “Mrs. Walter Scott hadn’t j’ined the church or
something.”




                              CHAPTER XI.
                    ROGER’S LETTERS AND THE RESULT.


While Mrs. Walter Scott was resting, Roger’s letters were brought in.
There was one for Frank, which he carried to his own room, and one for
Magdalen, who broke the seal at once and screamed with delight as
Roger’s photograph met her view. He had had it taken for her in Dresden,
and hoped it would afford her as much pleasure to receive it as hers had
given him. He did not say that he thought her position stiff, and her
dress too old for her, though he had thought it, and smiled at the prim,
old-womanish figure, sitting so erect in the high-backed chair. But he
would not willingly wound any one, much less the little girl who had
picked berries in the hot sun to pay for the picture. So he thanked her
for it, and enclosed his own, and gave his consent to the Charlestown
arrangement, and asked again that some competent person should take
charge of her wardrobe, which he wanted in every respect “to be like
that of other young girls.” He underscored this line, and Hester, who
read the letter after Magdalen, felt her blood tingle a little, and knew
that her day for dressing Magdalen was over. As for Magdalen, she was
too much engrossed in Roger’s picture to think much of the contents of
the letter.

“Oh, isn’t he splendid-looking; but I should be awfully afraid of him
now,” she said, as she went in quest of Frank.

She found him in his room, with a disturbed, disappointed look upon his
face. Roger had _not_ made him a rich man on his twenty-first birthday.
He had only ordered that six thousand dollars should be paid to him
instead of five, as mentioned in the will, and had said that inasmuch as
Frank had another year in college the four hundred should be continued
for the year and increased by an additional hundred, as seniors usually
wanted a little spending money. Frank’s good sense told him that this
was more than he had a right to expect, that Roger was and always had
been very generous with him; but he knew, too, that he was owing here
and there nearly a thousand dollars, while, worse than all, there was
for sale in Millbank the most beautiful fast horse, which he greatly
coveted and had meant to buy, provided Roger came down handsomely.
Knowing that horses had been his father’s ruin and his grandfather’s
aversion, Frank had abstained tolerably well from indulging his taste,
which was decidedly toward the race-course. But he had always intended
to own a horse as soon as he was able. According to the will, he could
not use for that purpose any of the five thousand dollars left to him.
That was to set him up in business, though what the business would be
was more than he could tell. He hated study too much to be a lawyer or
doctor, and had in his mind a situation in some banking house where
capital was not required, and with his salary and the interest of what
Roger was going to give him he should do very well. That interest had
dwindled down to a very small sum, and in his disappointment Frank was
accusing Roger of stinginess, when Magdalen came in. She saw something
was the matter, and asked what it was, at the same time showing him
Roger’s picture, at which he looked attentively.

“Foreign travel is improving him,” he said. “He looks as if he hadn’t a
care in the world; and why should he have, with an income of twenty or
twenty-five thousand a year? What does he know of poverty, or debts, or
self-denials?”

Frank spoke bitterly, and Magdalen felt that he was blaming Roger, whose
blue eyes looked so kindly at him from the photograph.

“What is it, Frank?” she asked again; and then Frank told her of his
perplexities, and how much he owed, and how he had expected more than a
thousand dollars from Roger, and, as he talked, he made himself believe
that he was badly used, and Magdalen thought so, too, though she could
not quite see how Roger was obliged to give him money, if he did not
choose to do so.

Still she was very sorry for him, and wished that she owned Millbank, so
she could share it with the disconsolate Frank.

“I mean to write to Mr. Roger about it, and ask him to give you more,”
she said, a suggestion against which Frank uttered only a feeble
protest.

As he felt then, he was willing to receive aid by almost any means, and
he did not absolutely forbid Magdalen to write as she proposed; neither,
when she spoke of the will, and her intention to continue her search for
it, did he offer any remonstrance. He rather encouraged that idea, and
his face began to clear, and, before dinner was announced, Magdalen
heard him practising on his guitar, which had been sent from New York by
express, and which Hester likened to a “corn-stock fiddle.”

Mrs. Walter Scott came down to dinner, very neatly dressed in a pretty
muslin of a white-ground pattern, with a little lavender leaf upon it,
her lace collar fastened with a coral pin, and coral ornaments in her
ears. Her hair was curling better than usual, and was arranged very
becomingly, while her long train swept back behind her and gave her the
air of a queen, Magdalen thought, as she stood watching her. She was
very gracious to Magdalen all through the dinner, and doubly, trebly so
after a private conference with Frank, who told her of his
disappointment, and what Magdalen had said about writing to Roger, as
well as hunting for the will. Far more shrewd and cunning than her son,
who, with all his faults, was too honorable to stoop to stratagem and
duplicity, Mrs. Walter Scott saw at once how she could make a tool of
Magdalen, and by being very kind and gracious to her, play into her own
hands in more ways than one. Accompanying Roger’s letter was a check for
five hundred dollars, which Hester was to use for Magdalen’s wardrobe,
and for the payment of her bills at school as long as it lasted. When
more was needed, more would be sent, Roger said; and he asked that
everything needful should be furnished to make Magdalen on an equality
with other young girls of her age. Here was a chance for Mrs. Walter
Scott. She had good taste. She knew what school girls needed. She could
be economical, too, if she tried, she said with her sweet, winning way;
and if Mrs. Floyd pleased, she would, while at Millbank, relieve her
entirely of all care of Magdalen’s dress, and see to it herself.

“Better keep family matters in the family, and not go to Mrs. Johnson,
who knows but little more of such things than you do,” she said to
Hester, who, for once in her life, was hoodwinked, and consented to let
Mrs. Walter Scott take Magdalen and the check into her own hands.

There were two or three trips to New York, and two or three milliners
and dressmakers’ bills paid and receipted and said nothing about. There
were also bundles and bundles of dry goods forwarded to Millbank, from
Stewart’s, and Arnold’s, and Hearne’s, and one would have supposed that
Magdalen was a young lady just making her _débût_ into fashionable
society, instead of a little girl of twelve going away to school. The
receipted bills of said bundles were all scrupulously sent across the
water to Roger, to whom Mrs. Walter Scott wrote a very friendly letter,
begging pardon for the liberty she had taken of going to his house
uninvited, but expressing herself as so lonely and tired of the hot
city, and so anxious to visit the haunt sacred to her for the sake of
her dear husband, Roger’s only brother. Then she spoke of Magdalen in
the highest terms of praise, and said she had taken it upon herself to
see that she was properly fitted out, and as Roger, being a bachelor,
was not expected to know how much was actually required nowadays for a
young miss’s wardrobe, she sent him the bills that he might know what
she was getting, and stop her if she was too extravagant.

This was her first letter, to which Roger returned a very gracious
answer, thanking her for her interest in Magdalen, expressing himself as
glad that she was at Millbank, asking her to prolong her visit as long
as she found it agreeable, and saying he was not very likely to quarrel
about the bills, as he had very little idea of the cost of feminine
apparel.

Roger was not naturally suspicious, and it never occurred to him in
glancing over the bills to wonder what a child of twelve could do with
fifteen yards of blue silk or three yards of velvet. For aught he knew,
blue silk and black silk and velvet were as appropriate for Magdalen as
the merinos and Scotch plaids, and delaines and French calicoes, and
ginghams, and little striped crimson and black silk which the lady
purchased for Magdalen at reduced rates, and had made up for her
according to her own good taste.

In Mrs. Walter Scott’s second letter she spoke of two or three other
bills which she had forgotten to enclose in her last, and which were now
mislaid so that she could not readily find them. The amount was a little
over one hundred dollars, and she mentioned it so that he might know
just what disposition was made of his check while the money was in her
hands. Then it _did_ occur to Roger that Magdalen must be having a
wonderful outfit, and for a moment a distrust of Mrs. Walter Scott
flashed across his mind. But he quickly put it by as unworthy of him,
and by way of making amends for the distrust, sent to the lady herself
his check for one hundred dollars, which she was to accept for her
kindness to Magdalen. Mrs. Walter Scott was in the seventh heaven of
happiness, and petted Magdalen more than ever, and confirmed old Hester
in her belief that “she had joined the church or met with a great
change.”

The will was never mentioned in Hester’s presence, but to Magdalen Mrs.
Walter Scott talked about it, not as anything in which she was
especially interested, but as something which it was well enough to find
if it really existed, and gave, as she believed it did, more money to
Frank than the other one allowed him. Magdalen was completely dazzled
and charmed by the great lady whom she thought so beautiful and grand,
and whose long curls she stroked and admired, wondering a little why
Mrs. Irving was so much afraid of her doing anything to straighten them,
when her own hair, if once wet and curled and dried, could not well be
combed out of place. Magdalen believed in Mrs. Walter Scott, and looked
with a kind of disdain upon Mrs. Johnson and Nellie, who had once stood
for her ideas of queens and princesses. Now they were mere ciphers when
compared with Mrs. Walter Scott, who took her to drive, and kept her in
her own room, and kissed her affectionately when she promised of her own
accord “to look for that will until it was found.”

“My little pet, you make me so happy,” she had said; and Magdalen,
flushed with pride and flattery, thought how delightful it would be to
give the recovered document some day into the beautiful woman’s hands
and receive her honeyed words of thanks.

Those were very pleasant weeks for Magdalen which Frank and his mother
spent at Millbank; the pleasantest she had ever known, and she enjoyed
them thoroughly. The parlors were used every day, and Magdalen walked
with quite an air through the handsome rooms, arrayed in some one of her
new dresses which improved her so much, and made her, as Frank said,
most as handsome as Alice Grey. At her particular request she had a
white muslin made and tucked just like Alice’s in the picture, and then
went with Frank to Springfield, and sat as Alice sat, with her head
leaning on her hands, flowers in her lap, and her wavy hair arranged
like Alice’s. It was a striking picture, prettier, if possible, than
Alice’s, except that in Magdalen’s face there was an anxious expression,
a look of newness, as if she had come suddenly into the dress and the
position; whereas Alice was easy and natural, as if tucked muslins and
flowers were everyday matters with her. Magdalen was not ashamed of her
photograph this time, and she sent a copy to Roger, with the letter
which she wrote him, and in which she made Frank the theme of her
discourse. There was nothing roundabout in Magdalen’s character. She
came directly at what she wanted to say, and Roger was told in plain
terms that Magdalen wished he would give Frank a little more money, that
he had debts to pay, and had said that if he could get them off his mind
he would never incur another, but would work like a dog to earn his own
living when once he was through college. If Roger would do this, she,
Magdalen, would study so hard at school and be so economical, that
perhaps she could manage to save all he chose to send to Frank. Mrs.
Irving had bought her more clothes than she needed, and she could make
them last for two or three years,—she knew she could.

This was Magdalen’s letter; and a week after Frank’s return to college
he was surprised by a request from Roger to send him a list of all his
unpaid bills, as he wished to liquidate them. There were some bills
which Frank did not care to have come under Roger’s grave inspection;
but as these chanced to be the largest of them all, he could not afford
to lose the opportunity of having them taken off his hands; and so the
list went to Roger, with a self-accusing letter full of promises of
amendment. And kind, all-enduring Roger tried to believe his nephew
sincere, and paid his debts, and made him a free man again, and wrote
him a kind, fatherly letter, full of good advice, which Frank read with
his feet on the mantel, an expensive cigar in his mouth, and a mint
julep on the table beside him.

Meantime Magdalen had said good-by to Millbank, and was an inmate of
Charlestown Seminary, where her bright face and frank, impulsive manner
were winning her many friends among the young girls of her own age, and
the quickness which she evinced for learning, and the implicit obedience
she always rendered to the most trivial rule, were winning her golden
laurels from her teachers, who soon came to trust Magdalen Lennox as
they had seldom trusted any pupil before her.

Mrs. Walter Scott lingered at Millbank until the foliage, so fresh and
green when she came, changed into scarlet and gold, and finally fell to
the ground. Every day she stayed was clear gain to her, and so she
waited until her friends had all returned to the city, and then took her
departure and went back to New York, tolerably well satisfied with her
visit at Millbank. She had made a good thing of it on the whole. She had
managed to pay two or three little bills which were annoying her
terribly, for she did not like to be in debt. She had secured herself a
blue silk and a black silk, and a handsome velvet cloak, to say nothing
of the hundred dollars, which Roger had sent for services rendered to
Magdalen, and what was better for her peace of mind, she had made
herself believe that there was nothing very wrong in the transaction.
She would have shrunk from theft, had she called it by that name, almost
as much as from midnight murder, but what she had done was not theft,
nor yet was it dishonesty. It was simply taking a small part of what
belonged to her, for she firmly believed in the will, and always would
believe in it, whether it was found or not. So she sported her handsome
velvet cloak on Broadway, and wore her blue-silk dress, without a qualm
of conscience or a thought that they had come to her unlawfully.




                              CHAPTER XII.
                              ALICE GREY.


While the events we have narrated were transpiring at Millbank, the New
York train bound for Albany had stopped one summer afternoon at a little
station on the river, and then sped on its way, leaving a track of smoke
and dust behind it. From the platform of the depot a young girl watched
the cars till they passed out of sight, and then, with something like a
sigh, entered the carriage waiting for her. Nobody had come to meet her
but the driver, who touched his hat respectfully, and then busied
himself with the baggage. The girl did not ask him any questions. She
only looked up into his face with a wistful, questioning gaze, which he
seemed to understand; for he shook his head sadly, and said, “Bad again,
and gone.”

Then an expression of deep sorrow flitted over the girl’s face, and her
eyes filled with tears as she stepped into the carriage. The road led
several miles back from the river and up one winding hill after another,
so that the twilight shadows were fading, and the night was shutting in
the beautiful mountain scenery, ere the carriage passed through a broad,
handsome park to the side entrance of a massive brick building, where it
stopped, and the young girl sprang out, and ran hastily up the steps
into the hall. There was no one there to meet her. Nothing but silence
and loneliness, and the moonlight, which fell across the floor, and made
the young girl shiver as she went on to the end of the hall, where a
door opened suddenly, and a slight, straight woman appeared with
iron-grey puffs around her forehead, diamonds in her ears, diamonds on
her soft white hands, and diamonds fastening the lace ruffle, which
finished the neck of her black-satin dress. She was a proud-looking
woman, with a stern, haughty face, which relaxed into something like a
smile when she saw the young girl, who sprang forward with a cry, which
might perhaps have been construed into a cry of joy, if the words which
followed had been different.

“O, auntie,” she said, taking the hand offered her, and putting up her
lips for the kiss so gravely given—“O, auntie, _why_ did father send for
me to come home from the only place where I was ever happy?”

“I don’t know. Your father’s ways are ways of mystery to me,” the lady
said; and then, as if touched with something like pity for the desolate
creature who had been brought from “the only place where she was ever
happy,” to this home where she could not be very happy, the lady drew
her to a couch, and untied the blue ribbons of the hat, and unbuttoned
the gray sack, doing it all with a kind of caressing tenderness which
showed how dear the young girl was to her.

“But did he give you no reason, auntie? What did he say when he told you
I was coming?” the girl asked vehemently, and the lady replied:

“He was away from Beechwood several days, travelling in New England, and
when he came back he told me he had left orders for you to come home at
once. I thought, from what he said, that he saw you in New Haven.”

“I never saw or heard of him till Mr. Baldwin came, and said I was to
leave school for home, and he was to be my escort. It’s very strange
that he should want me home now. Robert told me _she_ was gone again.
Did she get very bad?’”

The voice which asked this question was sad and low, like the voices of
those who talk of their dead; and the voice which answered was low, too,
in its tones.

“Yes, she took to rocking and singing night as well as day, and that,
you know, makes your father nervous sooner than anything else.”

“Did she want to go?”

“No; she begged to stay at first, but went quietly enough at the last.”

“Did she ever mention _me_, auntie? Do you think she missed me and
wanted me?”

“She spoke of you once. She said, ‘If Allie was here, she wouldn’t let
me go.’”

“O, poor, poor darling! O, auntie, it’s terrible, isn’t it?”

Alice was sobbing now, and amid her sobs she asked:

“Was father gentle with her, and kind?”

“Yes, gentler, more patient than I have known him for years. It almost
seemed as if something must have happened to him while he was gone, for
he was very quiet and thoughtful when he came home, and did not order
nearly as many brandy slings, though he smoked all the time.”

“Not in her room!” and the girl looked quickly up.

“No, not in her room,—he spared her that; and when she first began to
rock and sing, he tried his best to quiet her, but he couldn’t. She was
worse than usual.”

“Oh, how dreadful our life is?” Alice said again, while a shiver as if
she were cold ran over her. “I used to envy the girls at school who were
looking forward with such delight to their vacations, when I had nothing
but this for my portion. It is better than I deserve, I know, and it is
wrong for me to murmur; but, auntie, nobody can ever envy me my home!”

Her white fingers were pressed to her eyes, and the tears were streaming
through them, as she sat there weeping so bitterly, the fair young girl
whom Magdalen Lennox had envied for her beauty, her muslin dress, her
mother, her home! Alas! Magdalen, playing, and working, and eating, and
living in the great kitchen at Millbank, had known more of genuine home
happiness in a month than poor Alice Grey had known in her whole life.
And yet Alice’s home presented to the eye a most beautiful and desirable
aspect. There were soft velvet carpets on all the floors, mirrors and
curtains of costly lace in all the rooms, with pictures, and books, and
shells, and rare ornaments from foreign lands; handsome grounds, with
winding walks and terraced banks and patches of flowers, and fountains,
and trees, and rustic seats, and vine-wreathed arbors, and shady nooks,
suggestive of quiet, delicious repose; horses and carriages, and plenty
of servants at command. This was Alice’s home, and it stood upon the
mountain side, overlooking the valley of the Hudson, which could be seen
at intervals winding its way to the sea.

An old Scotch servant, who had been in the family for years, came into
the library where Alice was sitting, and after warmly welcoming her
bonny mistress, told her tea was waiting in the little supper room,
where the table was laid with the prettiest of tea-cloths, and the solid
silver contrasted so brightly with the pure white china. There were
luscious strawberries, fresh from the vines, and sweet, thick cream from
Hannah’s milk-house, and the nice hot tea-cakes which Alice loved, and
her glass of water from her favorite spring under the rock, and Lucy
stood and waited on her with as much deference as if she had been a
queen.

Alice was very tired, and soon after tea was over she asked permission
to retire, and Nannie, her own waiting-maid, went with her up the broad
staircase and through the upper hall to her room, which was over the
library, and had, like that, a bay-window looking off into the distant
valley.

Nannie was all attention, but Alice did not want her that night. She
would rather be alone; and she dismissed the girl, saying to her with a
smile, “I had no good Nannie at school to undress me and put up my
things. We had to wait on ourselves; so you see I have become quite a
little woman, and shall often dispense with your services.”

With her door shut on Nannie, Alice went straight to her window, through
which the moonlight was streaming, and kneeling down with her head upon
the sill, she prayed earnestly for grace to bear the loneliness and
desolation weighing so heavily on her spirits.

Although a child in years, Alice Grey had long since learned at whose
feet to lay her burdens. Her religion was a part of her whole being, and
she made it very beautiful with her loving, consistent life. Her school
companions had dubbed her the little “Puritan,” and sometimes laughed at
her for what they called her straight-laced notions; but there was not
one of them who did not love the gentle Alice Grey, or who would not
have trusted her implicitly, and stood by her against the entire school.

Alice knew that she was apt to murmur too much at the darkness
overshadowing her home, and to forget the many blessings which crowned
her life, and she now asked forgiveness for it, and prayed for a spirit
of thankfulness for all the good Heaven had bestowed upon her. And then
she asked that, if possible, the shadow might be lifted from the life of
one who was at once a terror and an object of her deepest solicitude and
love.

Prayer with Alice was no mere form to be gone through; it was a real
thing,—a communing with a living Presence,—and she grew quiet and calm
under its influence, and sat for a time drinking in the beauty of the
night, and looking far off across the valley to the hills beyond,—the
hills nearer to New Haven,—where she had been so happy. Then, as she
felt strong enough to bear it, she took her lamp, and went noiselessly
down the wide hall and through a green baize door into a narrow passage
which led away from the front part of the building. Before one of the
doors she paused, and felt again the same heart beat she had so many
times experienced when she drew near that door and heard the peculiar
sound which always made her for a moment faint and sick. But that sound
was hushed now, and the room into which Alice finally entered was silent
as the grave; and the moon, which came through the windows in such broad
sheets of silvery light, showed that it was empty of all human life save
that of the young girl who stood looking round, her lip quivering and
her eyes filling with tears as one familiar object after another met her
view.

There was the cradle in the corner, just where it had stood for years,
and the carpet in that spot told of the constant motion which had worn
the threads away; and there, too, was the chair by the window, where
Alice had so often seen a wasted figure sit, and the bed with its snowy
coverings, to which sleep was almost a stranger. Alice knelt by this
bed, and with her hand upon the crib which seemed to bring the absent
one so near to her, she prayed again, and her tears fell like rain upon
the pillows which she kissed for the sake of the feverish, restless head
which had so often lain there.

“Poor darling,” she said, “do you know that Alice is here to-night in
your own room? Do you know that she is praying for you, and loving you,
and pitying you so much?”

Then as the words “if Allie was here I shouldn’t have to go away,”
recurred to her mind, she sobbed, “No, darling, if Allie had been here
you should not have gone, and now that she is here, she’ll bring you
back again ere long, and bear with all your fancies more patiently than
she ever did before.”

There was another kiss upon the pillow as if it had been a living face,
and Alice’s fair hands petted and caressed and smoothed the ruffled
linen, and then she turned away and passed again into the passage and
through the green baize door, back into the broader hall, where the air
seemed purer, and she breathed free again.

The morning succeeding Alice’s return to Beechwood was cool and
beautiful, and the sun shone brightly through the white mist which lay
on the river and curled up the mountain side. Alice was awake early, and
when Nan came to call her she found her dressed and sitting by the open
window, looking out upon the grounds and the park beyond.

“You see I have stolen a march upon you, Nannie,” Alice said; “but you
may unlock that largest trunk, and help me put up my things.”

The trunk was opened, and with Nannie’s assistance Alice hung away all
her pretty dresses, which were useless in this retired neighborhood,
where they saw so few people. The tucked muslin, which Magdalen had
admired in the picture, Nan folded carefully, smoothing out the rich
Valenciennes lace and laying it away in a drawer, to grow yellow and
limp, perhaps, ere it was worn again. Alice’s chief occupation at
Beechwood was to wander through the grounds or climb over the mountains
and hills, with Nan or the house dog Rover as escorts; and so she seldom
wore the dresses which had been the envy of her schoolmates. She cared
little for dress, and when at last she went down to the breakfast room
to meet her stately aunt, she wore a simple blue gingham, and a
white-linen apron, with dainty little pockets all ruffled and fluted and
looking as fresh and pure as she looked herself, with her wavy hair, and
eyes of violet blue.

Her aunt, in her iron-gray puffs, and morning-gown of silvery gray
satin, was very precise and ceremonious, and kissed her graciously, and
then presided at the table with as much formality as if she had been
giving a state dinner. There were strawberries again, and flaky rolls,
and fragrant chocolate, and a nice broiled trout from a brook among the
hills, where Tom had caught it for his young lady, who, with a
schoolgirl’s keen appetite, ate far too fast to please her aunt, who,
nevertheless, would not reprove her that first morning home. Breakfast
being over, Alice, who was expecting her father that day, went to his
room to see that it was in order. It adjoined the apartment where she
had knelt in tears the preceding night, and there was a door between the
two; but, while the other had been somewhat bare of ornament and
handsome furniture, it would seem as if the master of the house had
racked his brain to find rare and costly things with which to deck his
own private room. There were marks of wealth and luxury visible
everywhere, from the heavy tassels which looped the lace curtains of the
alcove where the massive rosewood bedstead stood, to the expensive
pictures on the wall,—French pictures many of them,—showing a taste
which some would call highly cultivated, and others questionable. Alice
detested them, and before one, which she considered the worst, she had
once hung her shawl in token of her disapprobation. She was accustomed
to them now, and she merely gave them a glance, and then moved on to a
pencil sketch, which she had never seen before. It was evidently a
graveyard scene, for there were evergreens and shrubs, and a tall
monument, and near them a little barefoot girl, with a basket of
flowers, which she was laying on the grave. Alice knew it was her
father’s drawing, and she studied it intently, wondering where he got
his idea, and who was the little girl, and whose the grave she was
decorating with flowers. Then she turned from the picture to her
father’s writing-desk, and opened drawer after drawer until she came to
one containing nothing but a faded bouquet of flowers, such as the girl
in the picture might have been putting on the grave, and a little lock
of yellow hair. Pinned about the hair was a paper, which bore the same
date as did that letter which Roger Irving guarded with so much care.

Alice had heard of Roger Irving from Frank, who called him “uncle” when
speaking of him to her. She had him in her mind as quite an elderly man,
with iron-gray hair, perhaps, such as her auntie wore, and she had
thought she would like to see Frank’s paragon of excellence; but she had
no idea how near he was brought to her by that faded bouquet and that
lock of golden hair, which so excited her curiosity.

Her father had always been a mystery to her. That there was something in
his past life which he wished to conceal, she felt sure, just as she was
certain that he was to blame for that shattered wreck which sometimes
made Beechwood a terror and a dread, but to which Alice clung with so
filial devotion. There was very little in common between Alice and her
father. A thorough man of the world, with no regard for anything holy
and good, except as it helped to raise him in the estimation of his
fellows, Mr. Grey could no more understand his gentle daughter, whose
life was so pure and consistent, and so constant a rebuke to him, than
she could sympathize with him in his ways of thinking and acting. There
was a time when in his heart he had said there was no God,—a time when,
without the slightest hesitancy, he would have trampled upon all God’s
divine institutions and set his laws at naught; and the teachings of one
as fascinating and agreeable as Arthur Grey had been productive of more
harm than this life would ever show, for they had reached on even to the
other world, where some of his deluded followers had gone before him.
But as Alice grew into girlhood, with her sweet face and the example of
her holy Christian life, there was a change, and people said that Arthur
Grey was a better man. Outwardly he was, perhaps. He said no longer
there was no God. He _knew_ there was when he looked at his patient,
self-denying daughter, and he knew that Grace alone had made her what
she was. For Alice’s sake he admitted Alice’s God, and, because he knew
it helped him in various ways, he paid all due deference to the forms of
religion, and none were more regular in their attendance at the little
church on the mountain side than he, or paid more liberally to every
religious and charitable object. He believed himself that he had
reformed, and he charged the reform to Alice and the memory of a
golden-haired woman whom he had loved better than he had since loved a
human being, save his daughter Alice. But far greater than his love for
his daughter was his love of self and because it suited him to do it he
took his child from school without the shadow of an excuse to her, and
was now making other arrangements for her without so much as asking how
she would like them. He did not greatly care. If it suited him it must
suit her; and, as the first step toward the accomplishment of his
object, he removed from Beechwood the great trial of his life, and put
it where it could not trouble him, and turned a deaf ear to its
entreaties to be taken back to “home” and “Allie” and the “crib” its
poor arms had rocked so many weary nights. He knew the people with whom
he left his charge were kind and considerate. He had tested them in that
respect; he paid them largely for what they did. “Laura” was better
there than at Beechwood, he believed; at all events he wanted her out of
his way for a time, and so he had unclasped her clinging arms from his
neck and kissed her flushed, tear-stained face, and put her from him,
and locked the door upon her, and gone his way, thinking that when he
served himself he was doing the best thing which Arthur Grey could do.

He was coming home the night after Alice’s arrival, and the carriage
went down to the station to meet him. There was a haze in the sky, and
the moon was not as bright as on the previous night, when Allie rode up
the mountain side; but it was very pleasant and cool, and Mr. Grey
enjoyed his ride, and thought how well he had managed everything, and
was glad he had been so kind and gentle with Laura, and sent her that
basket of fruit, and that pretty little _cradle_, which he found in New
York; and then he thought of Alice, and his heart gave a throb of
pleasure when he saw the gleam of her white dress through the moonlight
as she came out to meet him. There was a questioning look in her eyes,—a
grieved, sorry kind of expression,—which he saw as he led her into the
hall, and he kissed her very tenderly, and, smoothing her chestnut hair,
said in reply to that look:

“I knew you would hate to leave school, Allie; but I am going to take
you to Europe.”

“To Europe? Oh, father!” And Alice gave a scream of joy.

A trip to Europe had been her dream of perfect happiness, and now that
the dream was to be fulfilled, it seemed too good to be true.

“Oh, auntie!” she cried, running up to that stately lady, who, in her
iron-gray puffs and black satin of the previous night, was coming slowly
to meet her brother,—“Auntie, we are going to Europe, all of us! Isn’t
it splendid?”

She was very beautiful in her white dress, with her blue eyes shining so
brightly, and she hung about her father in a caressing way, and played
and sang his favorite songs; and then, when at last he bade her
good-night, she shook her curly head, and, holding fast his hand, went
with him up the stairs to his own room, which she entered with him. She
felt that he did not want her there; but she stayed just the same, and,
seating herself upon his knee, laid her soft, white arms across his
neck, and, looking straight into his eyes, pleaded earnestly for the
poor creature who had been an occupant of the adjoining room.

“Let her go with us, father. I am sure the voyage would do her good.
Don’t leave her there alone.”

But Mr. Grey said “No,” gently at first, then very firmly as Alice grew
more earnest, and, finally, so sternly and decidedly, that Alice gave it
up, with a great gush of tears, and only asked permission to see her
once before she sailed. But to this Mr. Grey answered no, also.

“It would only excite her,” he said; “and the more quiet she is kept,
the better it is for her. I have seen that everything is provided for
her comfort. She is better there than here, or with us across the sea.
We shall be absent several years, perhaps, as I intend putting you at
some good school where you will finish your education.”

He intimated a wish for her to leave him then, and so she bade him
good-night, and left him alone with his thoughts, which were not of the
most agreeable nature. How still it was in the next room!—so still, that
he trembled as he opened the door and went in, where Alice had wept so
bitterly. He did not weep; he never wept; but he was conscious of a
feeling of oppression and pain as he glanced around the quiet, orderly
room, at the chair by the window, the bed in the corner, and the crib
standing near.

“What could have put that idea into her head?” he asked himself, as,
with his hand upon the cradle, he made the motion which poor Laura kept
up so constantly.

Then with a sigh he went back to his own room, and stood a long time
before that picture of the graveyard, which hung upon the wall. There
was a softness now in his eyes and manner,—a softness which increased
when he turned to his chair by the writing-desk, and took from a drawer
the faded flowers and the curl of hair which Alice had found.

“Poor Jessie! I wish I had never crossed her path,” he said, as he put
the curl and flowers away, and thought again of Alice and the little
dark-eyed girl who had designated her “Frank’s Alice Grey.”

“Frank’s, indeed!” he said; “I trust I have effectually stopped any
foolishness of that kind.”

Frank Irving was evidently not a favorite with Mr. Grey, though not a
word was ever said of him to Alice, who, as the days went by, began to
be reconciled to her removal from school, and to interest herself in her
preparations for the trip to Europe. They were to sail the last of
August, and one morning, in October, Magdalen received a letter from
Frank, saying that he had just heard, from one of Miss Dana’s pupils,
that Alice Grey had gone to Italy.




                             CHAPTER XIII.
                             A RETROSPECT.


Six years have passed away and we lift the curtain of our story in
Charlestown, and, after pausing there a moment, go back across the
bridge which spans the interval between the present and the past. It was
the day but one before the close of the term, and those who had learned
to love each other with a schoolgirl’s warm, impetuous love, would soon
part, some forever and some to meet again, but when, or where, none
could tell.

             “It may be for years, and it may be forever!”

sang a clear, bird-like voice in the music-room, where Magdalen Lennox
was practising the song she was to sing the following night.

“Yes, it may be for years, and it maybe forever! I wish there were no
such thing as parting from those we love,” the young girl sighed, as,
with her sheet of music in her hand, she passed through the hall, and up
the stairs, to the room which had been hers so long.

Magdalen had been very happy at Charlestown, where every one loved her,
from the teacher, whom she never annoyed, to the smallest child, whom
she so often helped and encouraged; and she had enjoyed her vacations at
Millbank, and more than once had taken two or three of her young friends
there for the winter or summer holidays. And Hester had petted, and
admired, and waited upon her, and scolded her for soiling so many white
skirts, and then had sat up nights to iron these skirts, and had
remarked, with a feeling of pride and complacency, that Hattie Johnson’s
dresses were not as full or as long as Magdalen’s. Hester was very proud
of Magdalen; they were all proud of her at Millbank, and vied with each
other in their attentions to her; and Magdalen appreciated their
kindness, and loved her pleasant home, and thought there was no place
like it in the world; but for all that she rather dreaded returning to
it for good, with nothing to look forward to in the future. She
understood her position now far better than when she was a child, and as
she thought over the strange circumstances which had resulted in
bringing her to Millbank, her cheeks had burned crimson for the mother
who had so wantonly deserted her. Still she could not hate that mother,
and her nightly prayers always ended with a blessing upon her, and a
petition that she might sometime find her, or know, at least, who she
was. She knew she had no claim on Roger Irving, and, as she grew older,
she shrank from a life of dependence at Millbank, especially as _Frank_
was likely to be there a good share of his time.

With all the ardor of her impulsive nature she had clung to and believed
in him, until the day when he, too, said good-by, and left her for
Europe. He had been graduated with tolerable credit to himself, and
because of his fine oratorical ability had appeared upon the stage, and
made what Magdalen had thought a “splendid speech;” for Magdalen was
there in the old Centre Church, listening with rapt attention, and a
face radiant with the admiration she felt for her hero, whose graceful
gestures and clear, musical voice covered a multitude of defects in his
rather milk-and-watery declamation. It was Magdalen’s bouquet which had
fallen directly at his feet when his speech was ended, and nothing could
have been prettier than his manner as he stooped to pick it up, and then
bowed his thanks to the young girl, whose face flushed all over with
pride, both then and afterward, when, in the evening, she leaned upon
his arm at the reception given to the students and their friends.
Magdalen was a little girl of thirteen-and-a-half, while Frank was
twenty-two; was a graduate; was Mr. Irving, of New York; and could
afford to patronize her, and at the same time be very polite and
attentive to scores of young ladies whose acquaintance he had made
during his college career.

After that July day in New Haven, the happiest and proudest of
Magdalen’s life, he went with her to Millbank, and fished again in the
Connecticut, and hunted in the woods, and smoked his cigars beneath the
maple-trees, and teazed and tyrannized over, and petted, and made a
slave of Magdalen, just as the fancy took him. Then there came a letter
from Roger, written after the receipt of one from Magdalen, who, because
she fancied it might please her hero, had said how much Frank would
enjoy a year’s travel in Europe, and how much good it would do him,
especially as he was looking worn and thin from his recent close
application to study.

Roger bit his lip when he read that letter and wondered if the hint was
Frank’s suggestion, and wondered, too, if it were best to act upon it;
and then, with a genuine desire to see his young kinsman, he wrote to
Frank, inviting him to Paris, and offering to defray his expenses for a
year in Europe. Frank was almost beside himself with joy, for, except at
Millbank, he felt that he had no home, proper, in the world. His mother
had been compelled to rent her handsome house, and board with the people
who rented it. This just supported her, and nothing more. He would be in
the way in Lexington Avenue, and he accepted Roger’s invitation eagerly;
and one bright day, in September, sailed out of the harbor at New York,
while Magdalen stood on the shore and waved her handkerchief to him
until the vessel passed from sight.

The one year abroad had grown into five; Roger was fond of travel; he
had plenty of money at his command; it was as cheap living in Europe as
at Millbank, where under efficient superintendence everything seemed to
go on as well without as with him. He never encroached upon his
principal, even after Frank came to be his companion, and so he had
lingered year after year, sometimes in glorious Italy, sometimes
climbing the sides of Switzerland’s snow-capped mountains, sometimes
wandering through the Holy Land or exploring the river Nile, and again
resting for months on the vine-clad hills which overshadow the legendary
Rhine. Frank was not always with him. He did not care for pictures, or
scenery, or works of art; and when Roger stopped for months to improve
himself in these, Frank went his own way to voluptuous Paris, where the
gay society suited him better, or on to the beautiful island of Ischia,
where all was “so still, so green, and so dreamy,” and where at the
little mountain inn, called the “Piccola Sentinella,” and which
overlooked the sea, he met again with Alice Grey.

But any hopes he might have entertained with regard to the girl whom he
had admired so much in New Haven were effectually cut off by the studied
coolness of Mr. Grey’s manner towards him, and the obstacles constantly
thrown in the way of his seeing her alone. Mr. Grey did not like Frank
Irving, and soon after the arrival of the latter at the “Piccola
Sentinella,” he gave up his rooms at the inn, and started with his
daughter for Switzerland. There was a break then in Frank’s letters to
Magdalen, and when at last he wrote again it was to say that he was
coming home, and that Roger was coming with him.

This letter, which reached Magdalen the night preceding the examination,
awoke within her a feeling of uneasiness and disquiet. She had been
always more or less afraid of Roger, and she was especially so now that
she had not seen him for more than eight years, and he would undoubtedly
expect so much from her as a graduate and a young lady of eighteen. She
almost wished he would stay in Europe, or that she had some other home
than Millbank. It would not be half so pleasant with the master there,
as it used to be in other days when she was a little girl fishing with
Frank in the river, or hunting with him in the woods. Frank would be at
Millbank, too, it was true; but the travelled Frank, who spoke French
like a native, was very different from the Frank of five years ago, and
Magdalen dreaded him almost as much as she dreaded Roger himself,
wondering if he would tease her as he used to do, and if he would think
her improved and at all like Alice Grey, whom she knew he had met again
at the “Piccola Sentinella.” “I wish they would stay abroad five years
more,” she thought, as she finished reading Frank’s letter; and her
cheeks grew so hot and red, and her pulse beat so rapidly, that it was
long after midnight ere she could quiet herself for the rest she would
need on the morrow, when she was to act so conspicuous a part.




                              CHAPTER XIV.
                            IN THE EVENING.


Magdalen was very beautiful in her white, fleecy dress, which swept
backward with as broad and graceful a sweep as ever Mrs. Walter Scott’s
had done when she walked the halls at Millbank. There were flowers on
her bosom, knots of flowers on her short sleeves, and flowers in her
wavy hair, which was arranged in heavy coils about her head, with one or
two curls falling behind her ears. She knew she was handsome; she had
been told that too often not to know it; while had there been no other
means of knowledge within her reach, her mirror would have set her
right. But Magdalen was not vain, and there was not the slightest tinge
of self-consciousness in her manner as she went through the various
parts assigned her during the day, and received the homage of the crowd.
Once her room-mate had asked if she did not wish Mr. Irving could be
present in the evening, and Magdalen had answered, “No, I would not have
him here for the world. I should be sure to make a miserable failure, if
I knew Mr. Irving and Frank were looking on. But there is no danger of
that. They cannot have reached New York yet.”

Later in the day, and just as it was growing dark, a young girl came
into Magdalen’s room, talking eagerly of “the two most splendid-looking
men she had ever seen.”

“They came,” she said, “out of the hotel and walked before me all the
way, looking hard at the seminary as they passed it. I wonder who they
were. Both were handsome, and one was perfectly splendid.”

When Nellie Freeman was talking her companions usually listened to her,
and they did so now, laughing at her enthusiasm, and asking several
questions concerning the strangers who had interested her so much.
Magdalen said nothing, and her cheek turned pale for an instant as
something in Nellie’s description of the younger gentleman made her
wonder if the strangers could be Frank and Roger. But no: they could not
have reached New York yet, and if they had, they would not come on to
Charlestown without apprising her of their intentions, unless they
wished to see her first without being themselves seen. The very idea of
the latter possibility made Magdalen faint, and she asked if one of the
gentlemen was “oldish looking?”

“No, both young, decidedly so,” was Nellie’s reply, which decided the
matter for Magdalen.

It was not Roger Irving. She had seen no picture of him since the one
sent her six years ago, and judging him by herself he must have changed
a great deal since then. To girls of eighteen, thirty-two seems old; and
Roger was thirty-two, and consequently old, and very patriarchal, in
Magdalen’s estimation. There were some gray hairs in his head, and he
began to stoop, and wear glasses when he read, if the print was fine and
the light dim, she presumed. Nellie’s hero was not Roger, and Magdalen
arranged the flowers in her hair, and smoothed the long curls which fell
upon her neck, and clasped her gold bracelets on her arms, and then,
when it was time, appeared before the assembled crowd, who hailed her
with acclamations of joy, and when her brilliant performance at the
piano was ended, sent after her such cheers as called her back again,
not to play this time, but merely to bow before the audience, which
showered her with bouquets. Very gracefully she acknowledged the
compliment paid to her, and then retired, her cheeks burning scarlet and
her heart throbbing painfully as she thought of the face which she had
seen far back among the spectators, just before she left the stage. Was
it Frank who was standing on his feet and applauding her so heartily,
and was that Roger beside him? If so, she could never face that crowd
again and sing Kathleen Mavourneen. And yet she must. They were calling
for her now, and with a tremendous effort of the will she quieted her
beating heart and went again before the people. But she did not look
across the room toward the two figures in the corner. She only knew
there was a movement in that direction as if some person or persons were
going out, just as she took her place by the piano. At first her voice
trembled a little, but gradually it grew steadier, clearer, and more
bird-like in its tones, while the people listened breathlessly, and
tears-rushed to the eyes of some as she threw her whole soul into the
pathetic words, “It may be for years and it may be forever.” She did not
think of the possible presence of Roger and Frank then. She was thinking
more of those from whom she was to separate so soon, and she sang as she
had never sung before, so sweetly, so distinctly, that not a word was
lost, and when the song was ended there came a pause as if her listeners
were loth to stir until the last faint echo of the glorious music had
died away. Then followed a storm of applause, before which all other
cheers were as nothing, and bouquets of the costliest kind fell in
showers at her feet. Over one of these she partly stumbled, and was
stooping to pick it up when a young man sprang to her side, and picking
it up for her, said to her in tones which thrilled her through and
through, “Take my arm, Magdalen, and come with me to Roger.”




                              CHAPTER XV.
                            ROGER AND FRANK.


The steamer in which Roger and Frank sailed for America had reached New
York three days before Magdalen believed it due. In her tasteful parlor,
where her handsomest furniture was arranged, Mrs. Walter Scott had
received the travellers, lamenting to Roger amid her words of welcome
that she could not entertain him now as she could once have done when at
the head of her own household. She was a boarder still, and her income
had not increased during the last five years. Her dresses were made to
last longer than of old, and she always thought twice before indulging
in any new vanity. Still she was in excellent spirits, induced in part
by meeting her son again, and partly by a plan which she had in her mind
and meant to carry out. It appeared in the course of the evening, when
speaking of Magdalen, who was so soon to be graduated and return to
Millbank.

“You’ll be wanting some lady of experience and culture as a companion
for Miss Lennox. Have you decided upon any one in particular?” she said
to Roger, who looked at her in astonishment, wondering what she meant.

She explained her meaning, and made him understand that to a portion of
the world at least it would seem highly improper for a young lady like
Magdalen to live at Millbank without some suitable companion as a
chaperone. She did not hint that she would under any circumstances fill
that place. Neither did Roger then suspect her motive. He was a little
disappointed and a little sorry, too, that any one should think it
necessary for a second party to stand between him and Magdalen. He had
met with many brilliant belles in foreign lands, high-born dames and
court ladies with titles to their names, and some of these had smiled
graciously upon the young American, and thought it worth their while to
flatter and admire him, but not one of all the gay throng had ever made
Roger’s heart beat one throb the faster. Women were not to him what they
were to fickle, flirting Frank, and that he would ever marry did not
seem to him very probable, unless he found some one widely different
from the ladies with whom he had come in contact. Of Magdalen, his baby,
he always thought as he had last seen her, with her shaker-bonnet
hanging down her back, and eyes brimfull of tears as she leaned over the
gate watching him going down the avenue and away from Millbank. To him
she was only a child, whose frolicsome ways and merry laugh, and
warm-hearted, impulsive manner he liked to remember as something which
would still exist when he returned to Millbank. But Mrs. Walter Scott
tore the veil away. Magdalen was a young lady, a girl of eighteen, and
Roger began to feel a little uneasy with regard to the manner in which
he would be expected to treat her. As a father, or at most as her elder
brother and guardian, he thought; but he could not see the necessity for
that third person at Millbank just because a few of Mrs. Grundy’s
daughters might require it. At all events he would wait and see what
Magdalen was like before he decided. He was to start next day for
Millbank, whither a telegram had been sent telling of his arrival, and
producing a great commotion among the servants.

Hester was an old woman now of nearly seventy, but her form was square
and straight as ever, and life was very strong within her yet. With
Aleck, whom time had touched less lightly, she still reigned supreme at
Millbank. Ruey was long since married and gone, and six children played
around her door. Rosy-cheeked Bessie, who had taken Ruey’s place, was
lying out in the graveyard not far from Squire Irving’s monument, and
Ruth now did her work, and came at Hester’s call, after the telegram was
read. The house was always kept in order, but this summer it had
undergone a thorough renovation in honor of Roger’s expected arrival,
and so it was only needful that the rooms should be opened and aired,
and fresh linen put upon the beds, and water carried to the chambers,
for Frank was to accompany Roger. When all was done, the house looked
very neat and cool and inviting, and to Roger, who had not seen it for
eight years, it seemed, with its pleasant grounds and the scent of
new-mown hay upon the lawn, like a second Eden, as he rode up the avenue
to the door, where his old servants welcomed him so warmly. Hester, who
was not given to tears, cried with joy and pride as she led her boy into
the house, and looked into his face and told him he had not grown old a
bit, and that she thought him greatly improved, except for that hair
about his mouth. “She’d cut that off, the very first thing she did, for
how under the sun and moon was he ever going to _eat_?”

And Roger laughed good-humoredly, and told her his mustache was his pet,
and wound his arm around her and kissed her affectionately, and said she
was handsomer than any woman he’d seen since he left home.

“In the Lord’s name, what kind of company must the boy have kept?” old
Hester retorted, feeling flattered nevertheless, and thinking her boy
the handsomest and best she had ever seen.

It was Frank who proposed going on to Charlestown to escort Magdalen
home, and who suggested that they should not introduce themselves until
they had first seen her, and Roger consented to the plan and went with
his nephew to Charlestown, and took his seat among the spectators,
feeling very anxious for Magdalen to appear, and wondering how she would
look as a young lady. He could not realize the fact that she was
eighteen. In his mind she was the little girl leaning over the gate with
her eyes swimming in tears, while Frank remembered her standing upon the
wharf, her face very red with the autumnal wind which tossed her dress
so unmercifully, and showed her big feet, wrinkled stockings, and
shapeless ankles. Neither of them had a programme, and they did not know
when she was coming, and when at last she came, Roger did not recognize
her at first. But Frank’s exclamation of something more than surprise as
he suddenly rose to his feet, warned him that it was Magdalen who bore
herself so like a queen as she took her seat at the piano. The little
girl in the shaker, leaning over the gate, faded before this vision of
beautiful girlhood, and for a moment Roger felt as a father might feel
who after an absence of eight years returns to find his only child
developed into a lovely woman. His surprise and admiration kept him
silent, while his eyes took in the fresh, glowing beauty of Magdalen’s
face, and his well-trained ears drank in the glorious music she was
making. Frank, on the contrary, was restless and impatient. Had it been
possible, he would have gone to Magdalen at once, and stood guard over
her against the glances of those who, he felt, had no right to look at
her as they were looking. He saw that she was the bright star, around
which the interest of the entire audience centred, and he wanted to
claim her before them all as something belonging exclusively to the
Irving family, but, wedged in as he was, he could not well effect his
egress, and he sat eagerly listening or rather looking at Magdalen. He
could hardly be said to hear her, although he knew how well she was
acquitting herself. He was watching her glowing face and noticing the
glossy waves of her hair, the long curls on her neck, and the graceful
motions of her white hands and arms, and was thinking what a
regal-looking creature she was, and how delightful it would be at
Millbank, where one could have her all to himself. He did not regard
Roger as in his way at all. Roger never cared for women as he did. Roger
was wholly given to books, and would not in the least interfere with the
long walks, and rides, and _tête-à-têtes_ which Frank had rapidly
planned to enjoy with Magdalen even before she left the stage for the
first time. When she came back to sing he could sit still no longer, but
forced his way through the crowd, and went round to her just in time to
escort her from the stage. His appearance was so sudden, and Magdalen
was so surprised, that ere she realized at all what it meant, she had
taken Frank’s offered arm, and he was leading her past the group of
young girls who sent many curious glances after him, and whispered to
each other that he must be the younger Mr. Irving.

Frank was wonderfully improved in looks, and there was in his manner a
watchful tenderness and deference toward ladies, very gratifying to
those who like to feel that they are cared for and looked after, and
their slightest wish anticipated. And Magdalen felt it even during the
moment they were walking down the hall to the little reception room,
where Frank turned her more fully to the light, and said: “Excuse me,
but I must look at you again. Do you know how beautiful you have grown?
As your brother, I think I might kiss you after my long absence.”

Magdalen did not tell him he was not her brother, but she took a step
backward, while a look flashed into her eyes, which warned Frank that
his days for kissing her were over.

“Where is Mr. Irving?” she asked; and then, seating her in a chair, and
thoughtfully dropping the curtain so that the cool night air, which had
in it a feeling of rain, should not blow so directly upon her uncovered
neck, Frank left her and went for Roger.

Magdalen would have kissed Roger as she thought of him while sitting
there waiting for him, but when he came, and stood before her, she would
as soon have kissed Frank himself, as the elegant-looking young man
whose dark-blue eyes and rich, brown hair with a dash of gold in it,
were all that were left of the Roger who went from her eight years ago.
He was entirely different from Frank, both in looks and style and
manner. He could not bend over a woman with such brooding tenderness,
and make her think every thought and wish were subservient to his own,
but there was something about him which impressed one with the genuine
goodness and honesty of the man who was worth a dozen Franks. And
Magdalen felt it at once, and gave her hand trustingly to him, and did
not try to draw back from him when, as a father would have kissed his
child, he bent over her, and kissed her fair brow, and told her how glad
he was to see her, and how much she was improved.

“I should never have recognized you but for Frank,” he said. “You have
changed so much from the little girl who leaned over the gate to bid me
good-by. Do you remember it?”

Magdalen did remember it, and her sorrow at parting with Roger, and
could hardly realize that he had come back to her again. He was very
kind, very attentive; and she felt a thrill of pride as she walked
through the halls or talked to her companions, with Roger and Frank on
either side of her, Frank so absorbed in her as to pay no heed to those
around him, while Roger never for a moment forgot that something was due
to others as well as to Magdalen. He saw her all the time, and heard
every word she said, and marked how well she said it, but he was
attentive and courteous to others, and made himself so agreeable to
Nellie Freeman, to whom Magdalen introduced him, that she dreamed of him
that night, and went next morning to the depot on pretence of bidding
Magdalen good-by a second time, but really for the sake of seeing Mr.
Irving.

As Roger was anxious to return home as soon as possible, they left
Charlestown on an early train and reached Millbank at two o’clock.
Dinner was waiting for them, while Hester in her clean brown gingham,
with her white apron tied around her waist, stood in the door, ready to
welcome her young people.

Magdalen was her first object of attention, and the old lady kissed her
lovingly, and then went with her to her pleasant chamber, which looked
so cool and airy with its matting, and curtains of muslin looped with
blue, and its snowy white bed in the corner. She could not change her
dress before dinner, for her trunks had not been sent up, but she bathed
her heated face, and put on a fresh pair of cuffs and a clean linen
collar, and then, with her damp hair one mass of waves and little curls,
she went down to the dining-room, where Roger met her at the door and
led her to the head of his table, installing her as mistress, and
bidding her do the honors as the young lady of the house. In spite of
her gray dress, unrelieved by any color except the garnet pin which
fastened her collar, Magdalen looked very handsome as she presided at
Roger’s table, and her white hands moved gracefully among the silver
service; for there was fragrant coffee for dinner, with rich sweet cream
from the morning’s milk, and Hester, who cared little for fashions, had
sent it up with the meats, because she knew Roger would like it best
that way.

The dinner over, the party separated, Magdalen going to her room to put
her things away, Frank sauntering off to the summer-house, with his box
of cigars, and Roger joining Hester, who had so much to tell him of the
affairs at Millbank since he went away.




                              CHAPTER XVI.
                           LIFE AT MILLBANK.


Magdalen was very fresh and bright next morning when she went down to
breakfast, in her white cambric wrapper, just short enough in front to
show her small, trim foot and well-shaped ankle, which Frank saw at
once. There were no wrinkles in her stockings, and the little
high-heeled slippers were as unlike as possible to the big shoes which
he remembered so well, wondering at the change, and never guessing that
Magdalen’s persisting in wearing shoes too large for her while growing,
had helped to form the little feet which he admired so much as they
tripped up and down the stairs or through the halls, with him always
hovering near. Her bright, sprightly manner, which had in it a certain
spice of recklessness and daring, just suited him, and as the days went
by, and he became more and more fascinated with her, he followed her
like her shadow, feeling glad that so much of Roger’s attention was
necessarily given to his agents and overseers, who came so often to
Millbank, that he at last opened an office in the village, where he
spent most of his time, thus leaving Frank free to walk and talk with
Magdalen as much as he pleased. And he improved his opportunity, and was
seldom absent from her side more than a few moments at a time. At first
this devotion was very gratifying to Magdalen, who still regarded Frank
as the hero of her childhood, but after a few weeks of constant
intercourse with him, the spell which had bound her was broken, and she
began to tire a little of his attentions, and wish sometimes to be
alone.

One afternoon they were sitting together by the river, on the mossy
bank, beneath the large buttonwood tree, where they had spent so many
pleasant hours in the years gone by, and Frank was talking of his
future, and deploring his poverty as a hindrance to his ever becoming
popular or even successful in anything.

“Now, if I were Roger,” said he, “with his twenty-five thousand a year,
it would make a great difference. But here I am, most twenty-seven years
old, with no profession, no means of earning an honest livelihood, and
only the yearly interest of six thousand dollars, which, if I were to
indulge my tastes, would barely keep me in cigars and gloves and
neckties. I tell you what, Magdalen, it’s mighty inconvenient to be so
poor.”

As he delivered himself of this speech, Frank stretched himself upon the
grass and gave a lazy puff at his cigar, while his face wore a kind of
martyred look as if the world had dealt very harshly with him. Magdalen
was thoroughly angry, and her eye flashed indignantly, as she turned
towards him. He had been at Millbank nearly four weeks, and showed no
intention of leaving it. “Just sponging his board out of Roger,” Hester
said; and the old lady’s remarks had their effect on Magdalen, who
herself began to wonder if it was Frank’s intention to leave the care of
his support entirely to his uncle. It was her nature to say out what she
thought, and turning to Frank, she said abruptly, “If you are so poor,
why don’t you go to work and do something for yourself? If I were a man,
with as many avenues open to me as there are to men, I would not sit
idly down and bemoan the fate which had given me only six thousand
dollars. I’d make the most of that, and do something for myself. I do
not advise you to go away from Millbank, if there is anything you can do
here; but, honestly, Frank, I think it would look better if you were
trying to help yourself instead of depending upon Mr. Irving, who has
been so kind to you. And what I say to you I mean also for myself. There
is no reason why _I_ should be any longer a dependent here, and as soon
as I can find a situation as teacher or governess I shall accept it, and
you will see I can practise what I preach. I did not mean to wound you,
Frank, but it seems to me that both of us have received enough at Mr.
Irving’s hands, and should now try to help ourselves. You are not angry
with me, I hope?”

She was looking at him with her great bright eyes so kindly and
trustingly that he could not be angry with her, though he winced a
little and wished that she had not been quite so plain and outspoken
with him. It was the first time any one had put it before him in plain
words that he was living on Roger, and it hurt him cruelly that Magdalen
should be the one to rebuke him. Still he would not let her see his
annoyance, and he tried to appear natural as he answered, “I could not
be angry with you, especially when you tell me only the truth. I ought
not to live on Roger, and I don’t mean to, any longer. I’ll go into his
office to-morrow. I heard him say he wanted a clerk to do some of his
writing. I’ll be that clerk, and work like a dog. Will that suit you,
Maggie?”

Ere Magdalen could reply, a footstep was heard, and Roger came round a
bend in the river, fanning himself with his straw hat, and looking very
much heated with his rapid walk.

“I thought I should find you here,” he said. “It’s a splendid place for
a hot day. I wish I’d nothing to do but enjoy this delicious shade as
you two seem to be doing; but I must disturb _you_, Frank. Your mother
has just arrived, and is quite anxious to see you.”

Frank would far rather have stayed down by the river, and mentally
wishing his mother in Guinea, he rather languidly arose and walked away,
leaving Magdalen alone with Roger. Taking the seat Frank had vacated, he
laid his hat upon the grass, and leaning his head upon his elbow began
to talk very freely and familiarly, asking Magdalen if she missed her
schoolmates any, and if she did not think Millbank a much pleasanter
place than Charlestown.

Here was the very opening Magdalen desired;—here a chance to prove that
she was sincere in wishing to do something for herself, and in a few
words she made her intentions known to Roger, who quickly lifted himself
from his reclining position, and turned toward her a troubled, surprised
face as he asked why she wished to leave Millbank. “Are you not happy
here, Magda?”

He had written that name once to her, but had not called her thus before
in her hearing; and now as he did so his voice was so low and kind and
winning, that the tears sprang to Magdalen’s eyes, and she felt for a
moment a pang of homesickness at the thought of leaving Millbank.

“Yes, very happy,” she said; “but that is no reason why I should remain
a dependent upon you, and before I left the Seminary I determined to
earn my own living as soon as an opportunity presented itself. I cannot
forget that I have no right to be here, no claim upon you.”

“No claim up me, Magdalen! No right to be here!” Roger exclaimed. “As
well might a daughter say she had no right in her father’s house.”

“I am not your daughter, Mr. Irving. I am nobody’s daughter, so far as I
know: or if I am, I ought perhaps to blush for the parents who deserted
me. I have no name, no home, except what you so kindly gave me, and you
_have_ been kind, Mr. Irving, very, very kind, but that is no reason why
I should burden you now that I am able to take care of myself. O,
mother, mother! if I could only find her, or know why she treated me so
cruelly.”

Magdalen was sobbing now, with her face buried in her hands, and Roger
could see the great tears dropping from between her fingers. He knew she
was crying for the mother she had never known, and that shame, quite as
much as filial affection, was the cause of her distress, and he pitied
her so much, knowing just how she felt; for there had been a time when
he, too, was tormented with doubts concerning his own mother, the
golden-haired Jessie, who was now cherished in his memory as the purest
of women. He was very sorry for Magdalen, and very uncertain as to what,
under the circumstances, it was proper for him to do. The world said she
was a young lady, and if Roger had seen as much of her during the last
four weeks as Frank had seen, he might have thought so too. But so
absorbed had he been in his business, and so much of his time had been
taken up with looking over accounts and receipts, and listening to what
his agents had done, that he had given no very special attention to
Magdalen, further than that perfect courtesy and politeness which he
would award to any lady. He knew that she was very bright and pretty and
sprightly, and that the tripping of her footsteps and the rustle of her
white dress, and the sound of her clear, rich voice, breaking out in
merry peals of laughter, or singing in the twilight, made Millbank very
pleasant; but he thought of her still as a child, _his_ little child,
whom he had held in his lap in the dusty car and hushed to sleep in his
arms. She was only eighteen, he was thirty-two; and with that difference
between them, he might surely soothe and comfort her as if she really
were his daughter. Moving so near to her that her muslin dress swept
across his feet, he laid his hand very gently upon her hair, and
Magdalen, when she felt the pitying, caressing touch of that great
broad, warm hand, which seemed in some way to encircle and shield her
from all care or sorrow, bowed her head upon her lap, and cried more
bitterly than before,—cried now with a feeling of utter desolation, as
she began dimly to realize what it would be to go away from Millbank and
its master.

“Poor Magda,” he said, and his voice had in it all a father’s
tenderness, “I am sorry to see you so much distressed. I can guess in
part at the cause of your tears. You are crying for your mother, just as
I have cried for mine many and many a time.”

“No, not as you have cried for yours,” Magdalen said, lifting up her
head and flashing her brilliant eyes upon him. “Hester has told me about
_your_ mother. You believe her pure and good, while mine—oh, Mr. Irving,
I don’t know what I believe of mine.”

“Try to believe the best, then, until you know the worst;” and Roger
laid his arm across Magdalen’s shoulders and drew her nearer to him, as
he continued; “I have thought a great deal about that woman who left you
in my care. I believe she was crazy, made so by some great sorrow,—your
father’s death, perhaps,—for she was dressed in black; and, if so, she
was not responsible for what she did, and you need not question her
motives. She had a young, innocent face, and bright, handsome eyes like
yours, Magda.”

Every time he spoke that name, Magdalen felt a strange thrill creep
through her veins, and she grew very quiet while Roger talked to her of
her mother, and the time when he found himself with a helpless child
upon his hands.

“I adopted you then as my own,—my little baby,” he said. “You had
nothing to do with it; the bargain was of my making, and you cannot
break it. I have never given up my guardianship, never mean to give it
up until some one claims you who has a better right than I to my little
girl. And this I am saying in answer to your proposition of going away
from Millbank, because you have no right here,—no claim on me. I am
sorry that you should feel so,—you _have_ a claim on me,—I cannot let
you go,—Millbank would be very lonely without you, Magda.”

He paused a moment, and, looking off upon the hills across the river,
seemed to be thinking intently. But it was not of the interpretation
which many young girls of eighteen might put upon his words and manner.
Nothing could be further from his mind than making love to Magdalen. He
really felt as if he stood to her in the relation of a father, and that
she had the same claim upon him which a child has upon a parent. Her
proposition to leave Millbank disturbed him, and led him to think that
perhaps _he_ was in some way at fault. He had not been very attentive to
her;—he had been so much absorbed in his business as to forget that any
attentions were due from him as master of the house. He had left all
these things to Frank, who knew so much better how to entertain young
ladies than he did; but he meant to do better; and his eyes came back at
last from the hills across the river, and rested very kindly on her, as
he said:

“I am thinking, Magda, that possibly I may have been remiss in my
attentions to you since my return. I am not a lady’s man, in the common
acceptation of the term; but I have never meant to neglect you; and when
I have seemed the most forgetful, you have been, perhaps, the most in my
mind; and the coming home at night from the business which nearly drives
me crazy, has been very pleasant to me, because _you_ were there at
_our_ home I will call it, for it is as much yours as mine, and I want
you to consider it so. It is hardly probable that I shall ever marry. I
have lived to be thirty-two without finding a woman whom I would care to
make my wife, and, after thirty, one’s chances of matrimony lessen. But,
whether I marry or not, I shall provide for you, as well as Frank, who
should perhaps have had more of my father’s property. His mother once
believed there was another will,—a later one,—which gave him Millbank,
and disinherited me; but that is all passed now.”

This was the first time Magdalen had ever heard the will matter put in
so strong a light, and, springing to her feet, she exclaimed:

“Give Millbank to Frank, and disinherit you! I never heard that hinted
before. I understood that the later will merely gave more to Frank than
the five thousand dollars. I never dreamed, I did not know—when I—oh,
Mr. Irving, I have been such a monster!”

She was ringing her hands, in her distress at having believed in and
even hunted for a will which would take Millbank from Roger, who looked
at her in astonishment, and asked what she meant.

“Have you, too, heard of the _will_ trouble; who told you?” he asked.
And with her eyes full of tears, which with a quick nervous motion of
her fingers she dashed away, Magdalen replied:

“Frank told me first years ago, and his mother told me again, but not of
the disinheritance. She said the will was better for Frank, and I—oh,
Mr. Irving, forgive me,—I hunted for it ever so much, in all of the
rooms, and in the garret, where Hester found me, and seemed so angry,
that I remember thinking she knew something about it if there was one,
and like a silly, curious girl I said to myself, I’ll keep hunting till
I find it; but I didn’t. Oh, Mr. Irving, believe me, I didn’t! Don’t
look at me so, please,” Magdalen exclaimed in a tremor of distress at
the troubled, sorry look in Roger’s face,—a look as if he had been
wounded in his own home by his own friends. “I might have hunted more,
perhaps,” Magdalen went on, too truthful to keep back anything which
concerned herself; “but so much happened, and I went away to school and
forgot all about it. Will you forgive me for trying to turn you out of
doors.” She was kneeling by him now as he sat upon the bank, and her
hands were clasped upon his arm, while her tearful face was turned
imploringly to his.

Unclasping her hands from his arm, and keeping them between his own,
Roger said to her:

“You distress yourself unnecessarily about a thing which was done with
no intention to injure me. I know, of course, that you would not wish me
to give up the home I love so well; but, Magdalen, if there was a later
will it ought to be found, and restitution made.”

“You do _not_ believe there was such a will,—you surely do not,”
Magdalen asked, excitedly; and Roger replied:

“No, I do not. If I did I would move heaven and earth to find it, for in
that case I should have been living all these years on what belonged to
others. Don’t look so frightened, Magdalen,” Roger continued, playfully
touching her cheek, which had grown pale at the mere idea of his being
obliged to give up Millbank. “No harm should come to you. I should take
care of my little girl. I would work with my hands if necessary, and you
could help me. How would you like that?”

It was rather a dangerous situation for a girl like Magdalen. Her hands
were imprisoned by Roger, whose eyes rested so kindly upon her as he
spoke of their working for each other and asked how she would like it.

_How would she like it?_ She was a woman, with all a woman’s impulses.
And Roger Irving was a splendid-looking man, with something very winning
in his voice and manner, and it is not strange if at that moment a life
of toil with Roger looked more desirable to Magdalen than a life of ease
at Millbank without him.

“If it ever chances that you leave Millbank, I will gladly work like a
slave for you, to atone, if possible, for my meddlesome curiosity in
trying to find that will,” Magdalen replied; and Roger responded:

“I wish you to find it if there is one, and I give you full permission
to search as much and as often as you like. You spoke of Hester’s having
come upon you once when you were looking; where were you then?”

“Up in the garret,” Magdalen said. “There are piles of rubbish there,
and an old barrel of papers. I was tumbling them over, and I remember
now that Hester said something about its being worse for me if the will
was found; and she was very cross for several days, and very rude to
Mrs. Irving, who, she said, ‘put me up.’ She never liked Mrs. Irving
much, although latterly she has treated her very civilly.”

“And do you like my sister Helen?” Roger asked, a doubt beginning to
cross his mind as to the propriety of carrying out a plan which had
recently suggested itself to him. Mrs. Walter Scott, who never did
anything without a motive, had petted and caressed and flattered
Magdalen ever since she had fitted her out for school, and served
herself so well by the means. She had called upon her twice at the
seminary, had written her several affectionate letters, and it was
natural that Magdalen, who was wholly unsuspicious, should like her; and
she expressed her liking in such strong terms, that Roger’s olden
feeling of distrust,—if it could be called by so harsh a name,—gave way,
and he spoke of what his sister had said to him in New York with regard
to Magdalen having a companion or _chaperone_ at Millbank.

“You know, perhaps,” he said, “that the world has established certain
codes of propriety, one of which says that a young lady like you should
not live alone with an old bachelor like me. I don’t see the harm
myself, but sister Helen does, and she knows what is proper, of course.
She has made propriety the business of her life, and it has occurred to
me that it might be well for her to stay at Millbank altogether,—that
is, if it would please you to have her here.”

Magdalen felt that she was competent to take care of herself, but if she
_must_ have a companion she preferred Mrs. Irving, and assented readily
to a plan which had originated wholly in Mrs. Walter Scott’s fertile
brain, and to the accomplishment of which all her energies had been
directed for the last few years.

“It is fortunate that she is here,” Roger said, “as we can talk it over
together better than we could write about it. I shall be glad to assist
Helen in that way, and it may prove a pleasant arrangement for all
parties.”

They were walking back to the house now, across the pleasant fields
which were a part of Roger’s inheritance, and if in the young man’s
heart there was a feeling that it would be hard to give up all this, it
was but the natural result of his recent conversation concerning the
imaginary will. That such a document existed, he did not believe,
however; and his momentary disquiet had passed before he reached the
house, which looked so cool and inviting amid the dense shade of the
maples and elms.

“Come this way, Magdalen,” Roger said, as they entered the hall; and
Magdalen went with him into the music-room, starting with surprise, and
uttering an exclamation of delight as she saw a beautiful new piano in
place of the old rattling instrument which had occupied that corner in
the morning.

“Oh, I am so glad! I can now play with some satisfaction to myself and
pleasure to others,” she said, running her fingers rapidly over the
keys, then as her eye fell upon the silver plate, with her name,
“Magdalen Lennox,” engraved upon it, she stopped suddenly, and her eyes
filled with tears at once as she said:

“Oh, Mr. Irving, how good you are to me! what can I do to show that I
appreciate your kindness?”

Roger had managed to have the piano brought to the house while she was
away, intending it as a surprise, and he enjoyed it thoroughly, and
thought how beautiful she was, with those tear-drops glittering in her
great dark eyes. She was one of whom any parent might be proud, and he
was proud of her, and called himself her father, and tried to believe
that he felt toward her as a father would feel toward his daughter; but
somehow that little episode down by the river, when she had knelt before
him, with her hands upon his arm, and her flushed, eager face so near to
his, had stirred a new set of feelings in his heart and made him, for
the first time in his life, averse to being addressed by her as “Mr.
Irving.” And when she asked him what she could do to show how glad she
was, he said,

“I know you are glad,—I can see it in your eyes, and I want nothing in
return, unless, indeed, you drop the formal title of Mr. Irving, and
give me the more familiar one of Roger. Couldn’t you do that, Magda?”

Magdalen would as soon have thought of calling the clergyman of the
parish by his first name, as to have addressed her guardian as
Roger,—and she shook her head laughingly.

“No, Mr. Irving, you can never be Roger to me,—it would bring you too
much on a level with Frank, and that I should not like.”

Perhaps Roger was not altogether displeased with her answer, for he
smiled kindly upon her, and asked if he would have to fall very far to
reach his nephew’s level. “In some respects, yes,” was Magdalen’s reply,
as she commenced a brilliant polka which brought Frank himself into the
parlor, followed by his mother, who kissed Magdalen lovingly, and then
stood with both her hands folded on the young girl’s shoulder as she
went on playing one piece after another, and making such melody as had
not been heard since the days when Jessie was queen of Millbank and
played in the twilight for her gray-haired husband.

Mrs. Walter Scott was very sociable and kind and conciliatory, and
lavish of her praises of Millbank, which she admired so much, saying she
was half sorry she came, as it would be so hard to go back to her close,
hot rooms in New York. Then she said she expected to have her house on
her hands altogether, as her tenants were intending to go South in
November, and how she should live without the rent she did not know.

“Perhaps I can suggest something which will meet your approval,” Roger
said; and then he proceeded to speak of his plan that his sister should
stay at Millbank with Magdalen. Mrs. Walter Scott had never _thought_ of
such a thing,—she did not know that she _could_ live out of New
York,—and nothing but her love for Magdalen and her desire to serve
Roger, who had done so much for Frank, could induce her to consider the
proposition for a moment. This was what she _said_; but when five
hundred dollars a year was added to her fondness for Magdalen and her
desire to serve Roger, she consented to martyr herself, and accepted the
situation with as much amiability and resignation as if it had not been
the very object for which she had been striving ever since her first
visit to Charlestown, when she foresaw what Magdalen would be, and what
Roger would do for her. It was decided that Frank, too, should remain at
Millbank as a clerk in Roger’s office, where he pretended to study law,
and where, after his writing was done, he spent his whole time in
smoking cigars and following Magdalen, who sometimes teased him
unmercifully, and then drove him nearly wild with her lively sallies and
bewitching ways. They were very gay at Millbank that autumn; and in the
sad years which followed, Magdalen often looked back upon that time as
the happiest period of her life.

Roger was naturally domestic in his tastes, and would at any time have
preferred a quiet evening at home with his family to the gayest
assemblage; but his sister-in-law made him believe that, as the master
of Millbank, he owed a great deal to society, and so he threw open his
doors to his friends, who gladly availed themselves of anything which
would vary the monotony of their lives. Always bright and sparkling and
brilliant, Magdalen reigned triumphant as the belle on all occasions.
She was a general favorite, and as the autumn advanced, the young
maidens of Belvidere,—who had dreamed that to be mistress of Millbank
might be an honor in store for one of them,—began to notice the soft,
tender look in Roger’s eyes as they followed Magdalen’s movements,
whether in the merry dance, of which she never tired, or at the piano,
where she excelled all others in the freshness of her voice and the
brilliancy of her execution. Frank, too, with his gentlemanly manners
and foreign air, and Mrs. Walter Scott, with her city style and
elegance, added to the attractions at Millbank, where everything wore so
bright a hue, with no shadow to foretell the dark storm which was
coming. The _will_ seemed to be entirely forgotten, though Roger dreamed
once that it had been found,—and by Magdalen, too,—and that, with an
aching heart, he read that he was a beggar, made so by his father, and
that he had gone out from his beautiful home penniless, but not alone,
or utterly hopeless, for Magdalen was with him,—her dark eyes beamed
upon him, and her hands ministered to him just as she had said they
would, should he ever come to what he had.

Roger was glad this was only a dream,—glad to awake in his own pleasant
chamber and hear the robins sing in the maple-tree outside, and see from
his window the scarlet tints with which the autumnal frosts were
beginning to touch the maples. He was strongly attached to his beautiful
home, and to lose it now would be a bitter trial.

But he had no expectation of losing it. It belonged to him without a
question, and all through the autumn months he went on beautifying and
improving it, and studying constantly some new surprise which would add
to the happiness of those he had gathered around him, and whose comfort
he held far above his own. Wholly unselfish, and liberal almost to a
fault, he spent his money freely, not only for those of his own
household, but for the poor, who had known and loved him when a boy, and
who now idolized and honored him as a man, and blessed the day which had
brought him back to their midst,—the kind and considerate employer of
many of them,—the friend of the destitute and needy,—the cultivated
gentleman in society, and the courteous master of Millbank.




                             CHAPTER XVII.
                        LOVE-MAKING AT MILLBANK.


The holidays were over. They had been spent in New York, where, with
Mrs. Walter Scott as her _chaperone_, Magdalen had passed a few weeks,
and seen what was meant by fashionable society. But she did not like it,
and was glad to return to Millbank.

Roger had spent only a few days with her in New York, but Frank had been
her constant attendant, and not a little proud of the beautiful girl who
attracted so much attention. While there Magdalen had more than once
heard mention made of Alice Grey, who had returned to America and was
spending a few weeks in New York, where she would have been a belle but
for her poor health, which prevented her from mingling much in
fashionable society. Frank had called on her several times, and
occasionally she heard him rallied upon his penchant for Miss Grey by
some one of his friends, who knew them both. Frank would have denied the
charge openly had Magdalen’s manner towards him been different from what
it was. She called him her brother, and by always treating him as such,
made anything like love-making on his part almost impossible; and so
Frank thought to rouse her jealousy by allowing her to believe that
there was something serious between himself and Alice Grey. But in this
he was mistaken. The charm he had once possessed for Magdalen, when, as
a child, she enshrined him her hero and lived upon his smiles, was
broken, and though she liked him greatly and showed that she did so, she
knew that any stronger feeling towards him was utterly impossible, and
was delighted at the prospect of his transferring to another some of the
attentions which were becoming distasteful to her, from the fact of
their being so very marked and lover-like.

Once she spoke to him herself of Alice, who was stopping at the St.
Denis, and asked, “Why do you not bring her to see me or let me go to
her?” and Frank had answered her, “Miss Grey is too much of an invalid
to make or receive calls from strangers. She asks after you with a great
deal of interest, and hopes—”

Frank hesitated a moment, and Magdalen playfully caught him up,
saying,—“Hopes to know me well through you. Is that it, and is what I
have heard about you true? I am so glad, for I know I shall like her,
though I used to be jealous of her years ago when you talked so much of
her.”

Magdalen was very sincere in what she said, but foolish Frank, who set a
far greater value upon himself than others set upon him, and who could
not understand how any girl could be indifferent to him, was conceited
enough to fancy that he detected something like pique in Magdalen’s
manner, and that she was _not_ as much delighted with Alice Grey as she
would like him to think. This suited him, and so he made no reply,
except, “I am glad you are pleased with her. She is worthy of your
love.”

And thus was the conviction strengthened in Magdalen’s mind that she
might some day know Alice Grey intimately as the wife of Frank, towards
whom she showed at once a greater decree of familiarity than she had
done hitherto, making him think his ruse a successful one, which would
in due time bear the desired fruit. Meanwhile his mother had her own
darling scheme, which she was adroitly managing to carry out. Once she
would have spurned the thought of accepting Magdalen as her
daughter-in-law, but she had changed her mind after a conversation with
Roger, who, wholly deceived by the crafty, fascinating woman, had grown
very confidential, and been led on to admit that in case he never
married, or even if he did, Magdalen would stand to him in the relation
of a child, and share in his property. Indeed, from his conversation it
would seem that, feeling impressed with the uncertainty of life, and
having no foolish prejudices against making his will, he had already
done so, and provided for both Magdalen and Frank.

He did not state what provision he had made for them, and his sister did
not ask him. She preferred to find out in some other way, if possible,
and not betray the interest she felt in the matter. So she merely
thanked him for remembering Frank, for whom he had done so much, and
then at once changed the conversation. She did not seem at all curious,
and Roger, who liked her now much better than when he was a boy, never
dreamed how the next day, while he was in his office and Magdalen was
away on some errand for old Hester, the writing-desk, which still stood
in the library, was visited by Mrs. Walter Scott, who knew that some of
his papers were kept there, and whose curiosity was rewarded by a sight
of the desired document. It was not sealed, and with a timid glance at
the door she opened it nervously, but dared not stop to read the whole
lest some one should surprise her. Rapidly her eye ran over the paper
till it caught the name of Magdalen, coupled with one hundred thousand
dollars. That was to be her marriage portion, paid on her bridal day,
and Mrs. Walter Scott was about to read further when the sound of a
footstep warned her that some one was coming. To put the paper back in
its place was the work of a moment, and then, with a most innocent look
on her face the lady turned to meet old Hester Floyd, whose gray eyes
looked sharply at her, and who merely nodded in reply to her words of
explanation,—

“I am looking at this silver plate over the doors of the writing-desk.
How it is tarnished! One can scarcely make out the squire’s name. I wish
you’d set Ruth to polishing it.”

The plate was polished within fifteen minutes by Hester herself, who had
caught the rustle of papers and the quick shutting of the drawer. She
knew the tarnished plate was a pretence, and stood guard till Roger
came. He merely laughed at her suspicions, but when a few days after
Mrs. Walter Scott found an opportunity to try the drawer again, she
found it locked, and all her hopes of ascertaining how Frank fared in
the will were effectually cut off. But she knew about Magdalen. One
hundred thousand dollars as a marriage portion was worth considering,
and Mrs. Walter Scott did consider it, and it outweighed any scruples
she might otherwise have had concerning Magdalen’s birth, and made her
doubly gracious to the young girl whom she sought as her future
daughter-in-law.

That was just before they went to New York, where the favor with which
Magdalen was received confirmed her in her intentions to win the hundred
thousand dollars. Every opportunity for throwing the young people
together was seized upon, and if by chance she heard the name of Alice
Grey coupled with her son’s, she smiled incredulously, and said it was a
most absurd idea that Frank should wish to marry into a family where
there was hereditary insanity, as she knew was the case in Miss Grey’s.

After their return to Millbank she resolved to push matters a little,
and so one afternoon, when she chanced to be walking with Frank from the
office to the house, she broached the subject by asking how long he
intended to let matters go on as they were going, and why he did not at
once propose to Magdalen, and not keep her in suspense!

“_Suspense!_ mother;” and Frank looked up joyfully. “Do you think,—do
you believe Magdalen really cares for me? I have been afraid it was only
a sisterly regard, such as she would feel for me were I really her
brother.”

“She must be a strange girl to conduct herself towards you as she does
and not seriously care for you,” Mrs. Walter Scott replied; and Frank
continued, “She has been different since we came from New York, I know,
and has not kept me quite so much at arm’s-length. Mother,” and Frank
spoke more energetically than before, “I am so glad you have broken the
ice; so glad you like her and are willing. I did not know but you might
object, you are so straight-laced about blood and birth and all that.”

“I am a little particular about such things, I’ll admit,” Mrs. Irving
replied; “but in Magdalen’s case I am ready to make an exception. She is
a splendid girl and created a great sensation in New York; while better
than all, she is, or will be, an heiress. Roger has made his will, and
on her bridal day she is to have one hundred thousand dollars dowry.”

“How do you know that?” Frank asked quickly, and his mother replied: “No
matter how. It is sufficient that I do know it, and with poverty staring
us in the face the sooner you appropriate that hundred thousand the
better for both of us.”

“Mother,” and Frank spoke sternly, “I wonder what you take me for! A
mere mercenary wretch? Understand plainly that I am not so base as that,
and I love Magdalen well enough to marry her if she was never to have a
penny in the world. Much as I hate work I could work for _her_, and a
life of poverty shared with her has more attractions for me than all the
kingdoms in the world shared with another.”

They had reached Millbank by this time, and Magdalen met them at the
door. She had been out for a drive, and the exercise and clear wintry
air had brought a deeper glow than usual to her cheeks and made her eyes
like diamonds. She had never been more beautiful to Frank than she was
that evening in her soft crimson dress, with her hair arranged in long
curls, which fell about her face and neck in such profusion. Magdalen
did not often curl her hair; it was too much trouble, she said, and she
had only done so to-day because of something which Roger had said to
her. He had been standing with her before the picture of his mother,
whose golden hair covered her like a veil, and to Magdalen, who admired
the flowing tresses, he had said, “Why don’t you wear curls, Magda? I
like so much to see them when I know they are as natural as yours would
be.”

That afternoon Magdalen had taken more than usual pains with her toilet,
and Celine, the French maid, whom Mrs. Walter Scott had introduced into
the house, had gone into ecstasies over the long, beautiful curls which
fell almost to Magdalen’s waist and somewhat softened her dashing style
of beauty. Roger, too, had complimented her, when about four o’clock he
came in, saying he was going to drive out a mile or two from Millbank,
and asking her to accompany him. The day was very cold, and with careful
forethought he had seen that she was warmly clad,—had himself put the
hot soap-stone to her feet, and wrapping the fur robes around her, had
looked into her bright face and starry eyes, and asked if she was
comfortable. On their return to Millbank, he had carefully lifted her
from the sleigh and carried her up the steps into the hall, where he set
her down, calling her Mother Bunch, with all her wraps around her, and
trying to help her remove them. Roger was a little awkward in anything
pertaining to a woman’s gear, but he managed to unpin the shawl and
untie the ribbons of the pretty, coquettish rigolette, which were in a
knot and troubled him somewhat, bringing his face so close to Magdalen’s
that her curls fell across his shoulder and he felt her breath upon his
cheek.

“Your ride has done you good, Magda. You are looking charmingly,” he
said, when at last she was undone and stood before the fire. He was
obliged to go out again, and as it was not likely he should return till
late, they were not to wait dinner for him,—he said.

Something in his manner toward her more than his words had affected
Magdalen with a sweet sense of happiness, and her face was radiant as
she met Frank in the hall, and went with him to the dining-room, where
dinner was waiting for them. She explained that Roger would not be
there, and then, as Frank took the head of the table, rallied him upon
his awkwardness in carving and his absent-mindedness in general. He had
a bad headache, he said, and after dinner was over and they had
adjourned to the library, where their evenings were usually passed, he
lay down upon the couch and looked so pale and tired, that Magdalen’s
sympathy was awakened at once, and she insisted upon doing something for
him. Since their return from New York she _had_ been far more familiar
in her intercourse with him than she would have been had she not
believed there was something between him and Alice Grey which might
ripen into love. With no fears for herself, she could afford to be
_very_ gracious, and being naturally something of a coquette, she had
tormented and teased poor Frank until he had some reason for believing
that his affection for her was returned, and that his suit would not be
disregarded should he ever urge it upon her. With the remembrance of
Roger’s words and manner thrilling every nerve, she was in an unusually
soft, amiable mood to-night, and knelt at last by Frank’s side and
offered to bathe his aching head.

“The girls at school used to tell me there was some mesmerism in my
fingers,” she said, “some power to drive away pain or exorcise evil
spirits. Let me try their effect on you.”

Mrs. Walter Scott, who had been watching the progress of matters, found
it convenient just then to leave the room, and Frank was alone with
Magdalen. For a few moments her white fingers threaded his hair,
brushing it back from his forehead and passing lightly over his
throbbing temples until it was not in human nature to endure any longer,
and rising suddenly from his reclining position, Frank clasped his arms
around her, and straining her to his bosom, pressed kiss after kiss upon
her lips, while he poured into her astonished ear the story of his love,
telling her how long ago it began,—telling her how dear she was to
him,—how for her sake he had lingered at Millbank trying to do something
for himself, because she had once suggested that such a thing would be
gratifying to her,—how thoughts of her were constantly in his mind,
whether awake or asleep, and lastly, that his mother approved his choice
and would gladly welcome her as a daughter.

As he talked, Magdalen had struggled to her feet, her cheeks burning
with surprise and mortification, and sorrow too, that Frank should have
misjudged her so. She knew he was in earnest, and she pitied him so
much, knowing as she did how hopeless was his suit.

“Speak to me,” he said at last, “if it is only to tell me no. Anything
is better than your silence.”

“Oh, Frank,” Magdalen began, “I am so sorry, because—”

“Don’t tell me no. I will not listen to that answer,” Frank burst out
impetuously, forgetting what he had just said when he begged her to
speak. “You do like me, or you have seemed to, and have given me some
encouragement, or I should not have told you what I have. Don’t you like
me, Magdalen?”

“Yes, very much, but not the way you mean. I do not like you well enough
to take you for my husband. And, Frank, what of Alice Grey? You say I
have encouraged you, and perhaps I have. I’ll admit that since I thought
you loved Miss Grey, I have been less guarded in my manner towards you;
but I never meant to mislead you,—never. I felt towards you as a sister
might feel towards a brother,—nothing more. But you do not tell me about
Miss Grey. Are _you_, then, so fickle?”

“Magdalen,” Frank said, “I may as well be truthful with you now; that
was all a ruse,—done for the sake of piquing you and rousing your
jealousy. I did care for Alice when she was a young girl and I in
college at New Haven, and when I met her again abroad, and found her the
same sweet, lovely creature, I don’t know what I might have done but for
her father, who seemed to dislike me, and always imposed some obstacle
to my seeing her alone, until at last he took her away and I saw her no
more, until I met her in New York; and had learned to love you far more
than I ever loved Alice Grey.”

“And so to win me you stooped to play with the affections of another. A
very manly thing to do,” Magdalen rejoined, in a tone of bitter scorn,
which made poor Frank’s blood tingle as he tried to stammer out his
excuses.

“It was not a manly act, I know; but, Magdalen, so far as Alice was
concerned, it did no harm. I _know_ she does not care for me now, if she
ever did. Our intercourse was merely friendly,—nothing more; and I
cannot flatter myself that she would feel one heart-throb were she to
hear to-day of my marriage with another. Forgive me, Magdalen, if in my
love for you I resorted to duplicity, and tell me that you can love me
in time,—that you will try to do so. Will you, Magdalen?”

“No. Frank. I can never be your wife; never. Don’t mention it again;
don’t think of it again, for it cannot be.”

This was Magdalen’s reply, which Frank felt was final. She was leaving
the room, and he let her go without another word. He had lost her, and
throwing himself upon the couch, he pressed his hands together upon his
aching head, and groaned aloud with pain and bitter disappointment.




                             CHAPTER XVIII.
                     THE LOOSE BOARD IN THE GARRET.


Hester Floyd was sick. Exposure to a heavy rain had brought on an attack
of fever, which confined her to her bed, where she lay helpless and
cross, and sometimes delirious. She would have no one with her but
Magdalen. Every other person made her nervous, she said. Magdalen’s
hands were soft; Magdalen’s step was light; Magdalen knew what to do;
and so Magdalen stayed by her constantly, glad of an excuse to keep away
from Frank, with whom she had held but little intercourse since that
night in the library, which she remembered with so much regret. Hester’s
illness she looked upon as a godsend, and stayed all day by the fretful
old woman’s bedside, only leaving the room at meal time, or to make a
feint of watching Mrs. Walter Scott, for whom Hester evinced a strong
dislike or dread.

“Snoopin’, pryin’ thing,” she said to Magdalen. “She’ll be up to all
sorts of capers now that I’m laid up and can’t head her off. I’ve found
her there more than once; I knew what she was after, and took it away,
and then like a fool lugged it back again, and it’s there now, and you
must get it, and put it—put it—oh, for the dear Lord’s sake what
nonsense be I talkin’. What was I sayin’, Magdalen?”

Hester came to herself with a start, and stared wildly at Magdalen, who
was bending over her, wondering what she meant, and what it was which
she must bring from the garret and hide. Whatever it was, it troubled
Hester Floyd greatly, and when she was delirious, as was often the case,
she was sure to talk of it, and beg of Magdalen to get it, and put it
beyond the reach of Mrs. Walter Scott.

“How am I to get it when I don’t know what it is nor where it is,”
Magdalen said to her one night when she sat watching by her, and Hester
had insisted that she should go to the garret, and “head off that woman.
She’s there, and by and by she’ll find that loose board in the floor
under the rafters where I bumped my head so hard. Go, Magdalen, for
Heaven’s sake, if you care for _Roger_.”

Magdalen’s face was very white now, and her eyes like burning coals as
she questioned Hester. At the mention of Roger a sudden suspicion had
flashed upon her, making her grow faint and cold as she grasped the high
post of the bedstead and asked, “How she could get it when she did not
know what it was, nor where it was.”

The sound of her voice roused the old woman a little, but she soon
relapsed into her dreamy, talkative mood, and insisted that Mrs. Walter
Scott was in the garret and Magdalen must “head her off.”

“I’ll go,” Magdalen said at last, taking the candle which Hester always
used for going about the house. “Hush!” she continued, as Hester began
to grow very restless; “I’m going to the garret. Be quiet till I come
back.”

“I will, yes,” was Hester’s reply, her eyes wide open now, and staring
wildly at Magdalen, whose dress she tried to clutch with her hand as she
whispered, “The loose board, way down under the eaves. You must get on
your knees. Bring it to me, and never tell.”

The house was very quiet, for the family had long since retired, and the
pale spring moonlight came struggling through the windows, and lighting
up the halls through which Magdalen went on her strange errand to the
garret. The stairs which led to it were away from the main portion of
the building, and she felt a thrill of something like fear as she passed
into the dark, narrow hall, and paused a moment by the door of the
stairway. What should she find,—was Mrs. Walter Scott there, as Hester
had averred; and if so, what was she doing, and what excuse could
Magdalen make for being there herself?

“I’ll wait, and let matters take their course,” she thought; and then
summoning all her courage, she opened the door, and began the ascent of
the steep narrow way, every stair of which creaked with her tread, for
Magdalen did not try to be cautious. “If any one is there, they shall
know I am coming,” she thought; and she held her candle high above her
head, so that its light might shine to the farthest crevice of the
garret and give warning of her approach.

But there was no one there, and only the accumulated rubbish of the
house met her view, as she came fully into the garret and cast her eyes
from corner to corner and beam to beam. Through the dingy window at the
north the moon was looking in, and lighting up that end of the garret
with a weird, ghostly kind of light, which made Magdalen shiver more
than utter darkness would have done. She knew she was alone; there was
no sign of life around her, except the huge rat, which, frightened at
this unlooked-for visitation, sprang from Magdalen knew not where, and
running past her disappeared in a hole low down under the eaves,
reminding Magdalen of what Hester had said of “the loose plank under the
rafters where you have to stoop.”

At sight of the rat Magdalen had uttered a cry, which she quickly
suppressed, and then stood watching the frightened animal, until it
disappeared from sight.

“There can be no harm in seeing if there _is_ a loose board there,”
Magdalen thought; and setting her candle upon a little table she groped
her way after the rat, bumping her head once as old Hester had bumped
hers; and then crouching down upon her knees, she examined the floor in
that part of the garret, growing faint and cold and frightened when she
found that far back under the roof there _was_ a board, shorter than the
others, which looked as if it might with a little trouble be lifted from
its place.

It fitted perfectly, and, but for what old Hester had said, might never
have been discovered to be loose and capable of being moved from its
position. Magdalen was not quite sure, even now, that she could raise
it, and if she could, did she wish to, and for what reason? “Was there
anything hidden under it, and if so, _was it_—?”

Magdalen did not dare repeat the last word even to herself, and, as she
thought it, there came rushing over her a feeling as if she were already
guilty of making Roger Irving a beggar.

“No, no, I can’t do that. If there is anything under there,—which I do
not believe,—it may remain there for all of me,” she said; and her face
was very pale as she drew back from beneath the roof, and took the
candle in her hand.

The moon had passed under a cloud, leaving the garret in darkness, and
Magdalen heard the rising wind sweeping past the windows as she went
down the stairs and out again into the hall, where she breathed more
freely, and felt less as if there were a nightmare’s spell upon her.
Mrs. Walter Scott’s door stood ajar just as it had done when Magdalen
passed it on her way to the garret, and, impelled by a feeling she could
not resist, she looked cautiously in. The lady was sleeping soundly,
with her hair in the hideous curl papers, and her white hands resting
peacefully outside the counterpane. She had not been near the garret.
She knew nothing of the loose plank under the roof, and with a feeling
that injustice had been done to the sleeper, Magdalen passed on toward
Hester’s room, her heart beating rapidly and the blood rushing in
torrents to her face and neck as she heard Hester’s sharp, querulous
tones mingled with another voice which seemed trying to quiet her. It
was a man’s voice,—Roger’s voice,—and Roger himself was bending over the
restless woman and telling her that Magdalen would soon be back, and
that nobody was going to harm him.

“Here she is now,” he continued, as Magdalen glided into the room,
looking like some ghost, for the blood which had crimsoned her face a
moment before had receded from it, leaving it white as marble, and
making her dark eyes seem larger and brighter and blacker than their
wont. “Why, Magda,” Roger exclaimed, coming quickly to her side, “what
is the matter? Have you, too, been hearing burglars?”

“Burglars!” Magdalen repeated, trying to smile as she put her candle
upon the table and hastened to Hester, who was sitting up in bed, and
who demanded of her, “Did you find it? Was she there?”

“No, no. There was nobody there,” Magdalen said, soothingly; and then as
Hester became quiet, and seemed falling away to sleep as suddenly as she
sometimes awoke, Magdalen turned to Roger, who was looking curiously at
her, and as she fancied with a troubled expression on his face. “You
spoke of burglars. What did you mean?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he replied, laughingly. “Only I have been restless all
night,—too strong coffee for dinner, I dare say. Suppose you see to it
yourself to-morrow. I remember a cup you made me once, and I never
tasted better.”

“Yes; but what of the burglars, and why are you up?” Magdalen continued.

She knew there was some reason for Roger’s being there at that hour of
the night, and she wished to get at it.

“I could not sleep,” he replied, “and I thought I heard some one about
the house. The post-office was entered last week, and as it would not be
a very improbable thing for the robbers to come here, I dressed, and
fearing that you might be alarmed at any unusual sound about the house,
I came directly here, and learned from Hester that you were
_rummaging_,—you or somebody. I could hardly understand what she did
mean, she was so excited.”

“I rummaging!” Magdalen stammered. “Hester has queer fancies. She took
it into her head that Mrs. Irving was rummaging, as she calls it, and
insisted that I should go and see; so I went, to quiet her.”

“And got a cobweb in your hair,” Roger added, playfully brushing from
her hair the cobweb which she had gotten under the roof, and which he
held up before her.

“Oh, Mr. Irving!” Magdalen exclaimed, in real distress, for she did not
like the expression of the eyes fastened upon her. “I don’t know what
Hester may have said to you, but she has such queer ideas, and she would
make me go where she said Mrs. Irving was, and I went; but I meant no
harm, believe me, won’t you?”

Her cheeks were scarlet, and her eyes were filling with tears as they
looked up to Roger, who laughed merrily, and said:

“Of course I believe you; for what possible harm could there be in your
going to the garret after Mrs. Irving, or what could Hester think she
was there for?”

He knew then where she had been. Hester had let that out, but had she
told him anything further? Magdalen did not know. She was resolved,
however, that she would tell him nothing herself, so she merely replied:

“Hester is often out of her head, and when she is she seems to think
that Mrs. Irving meditates some harm to you.”

“I discovered that from what she said while you were gone,” Roger
rejoined; and then, looking at the clock, he saw it was nearly one, and
asked Magdalen if she would not like him to watch while she slept.

If he knew of the loose plank, or had a thought of the will, he gave no
sign of his knowledge; he only seemed anxious about Magdalen, and afraid
that she would over-exert herself, and when she refused to sleep, he
insisted upon sitting with her and sharing her vigils.

“It must be tedious to watch alone,” he said, and then he brought the
large chair he was accustomed to read in, and made Magdalen sit in it,
and found a pillow for her head, and bade her keep quiet and try to
rest.

It was pleasant to be cared for, especially as she was tired and worn,
and Magdalen sat very still, with her head upon the pillow and her face
in the shadow, until her eyelids began to droop and her hands to slide
down into her lap, and when Roger asked if it was time for the medicine,
he received no answer, for Magdalen was asleep.

“Poor child,” he said, as he stood looking at her. “She has grown pale
and thin with nursing Hester. I must get some one to take her place, and
persuade Hester to be reasonable for once. Magda must not be allowed to
get sick if I can help it. How very beautiful she is, with the long
eyelashes on her cheek and her hair rippling away from her forehead! I
wonder are all young girls as beautiful in their sleep as Magda.”

Roger was strangely moved as he stood looking at the tired sleeping
girl. Little by little, day by day, week by week, she had been growing
into his heart, until now she filled every niche and corner of it, and
filled it so completely, that to have torn her from it would have left
it bleeding and desolate. She was not his daughter now, nor his ward,
nor his sister. She was _Magda_, his princess, his queen, whose bright
eyes and clear, ringing voice thrilled him with a new sense of
happiness, and made him long to clasp her in his arms and claim her for
his own in the only way she could ever satisfy him now. And he did not
greatly fear what her answer might be, for he had noted the bright flush
which always came to her cheek, and the kindling light in her starry
eyes when he appeared suddenly before her. He did not believe he was
indifferent to her, and as he sat by her until the gray dawn broke, he
resolved that ere long he would end his suspense, and know from her own
lips if she could love him enough to be his wife. Gradually, as her
slumber grew more profound, the pillow slipped, and her head dropped
into a position which looked so uncomfortable, that Roger ventured to
lift it up and place it more easily against the back of the chair. An
hour later and Magdalen woke with a start, exclaiming when she saw the
daylight through the shutters and Hester’s medicine untouched upon the
table, “Why didn’t you wake me? Hester has not taken her medicine, and
the doctor will blame me.”

“Hester is just as well without it,” Roger answered. “She has slept
quietly every moment, and sleep will do her more good than drugs. My
word for it she will be better when she wakes; but, Magda, I shall get
her a nurse to-day, and relieve you. I cannot let you grow pale and
thin. You are looking like a ghost now. Come with me into the open air,
which you need after this close room.”

He wrapped a shawl around her, and taking her hood from the table in the
hall tied it upon her head and then led her out upon the wide piazza,
where the fresh breeze from the river was blowing, and where he walked
up and down, with her hand on his arm, until the color came back to her
cheeks, and her eyes had in them their old, restless brightness, as she
stood by him and looked off upon the hills just growing red in the light
of the rising sun.

It was too early yet for many flowers, but the April winds had melted
the snow from off the Millbank grounds, and here and there patches of
green grass were beginning to show, and the golden daffodil was just
opening its leaves upon the borders of the garden walk. Millbank was
nothing to what it would be a few weeks later, but it was handsome even
now, and both Roger and Magdalen commented upon its beauty, while the
former spoke of some improvements he had in contemplation, and should
commence as soon as the ground was settled. A fountain here, and a
terrace there for autumn flowers, and another winding walk leading to
the grove toward the mill he meant to have, he said, and a pretty little
summer-house down by the brook, like one he had seen in England.

And as he talked of the summer-house by the brook, with its rustic seats
and stands, the sun passed into a bank of clouds, the wind began to
freshen and blow up from the river in raw, chilling gusts, which made
Magdalen shiver, and brought to her mind last night’s adventure in the
garret where the loose plank was. And with thoughts of that plank there
crept over her a deeper chill,—a feeling of depression, as if the
brightness of Millbank was passing away forever, and that the change was
somehow being wrought by herself.




                              CHAPTER XIX.
                       THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLE.


Hester was better. Her long sleep had done her good, and when she awoke
it was evident that her fever was broken and the crisis of her disease
passed. She was perfectly rational, and evidently retained no
recollection of what she had said of the garret and Mrs. Walter Scott.
Indeed, she was very civil to that lady, who, on her way to breakfast,
came in to see her, looking very bright and fresh in her black wrapper,
trimmed with scarlet, and her pretty little breakfast cap set on the
back of her head. Good fare, which she did not have to pay for,—pure
country air, and freedom from all care, had had a rejuvenating effect on
Mrs. Walter Scott, and for a woman of forty-seven or thereabouts, she
was remarkably handsome and well preserved. This morning she complained
of feeling a little languid. She could not have slept as well as usual,
she said, and she dreamed that some one came into her room, or tried to
come in, and when she woke she was sure she heard footsteps at the
extremity of the hall.

“It was Roger, most likely,” Hester rejoined. “Like the good boy he is,
he got up about twelve, or thereabouts, and stayed up the rest of the
night with me and Magdalen.”

“Oh-h,” Mrs. Irving replied, and her eyes had in them a puzzled look as
she left Hester’s room and repaired to the breakfast table.

“Hester tells me that you spent the night with her, or with
Magdalen,—which was it?” she said to Roger playfully, as she leisurely
sipped her cup of coffee.

There was no reason why Magdalen should have colored scarlet as she did,
or why Roger should stammer and seem so confused as he replied, “Yes,
Hester was very restless, and Magdalen very tired, and so I stayed with
them.”

“And proved a very efficient watcher, it seems; for Hester is better and
Magdalen as blooming as a rose,” was Mrs. Irving’s next remark, as she
shot a quick, curious glance at Magdalen, whose burning cheeks confirmed
her in the suspicion which until that morning had never entered her
mind.

Magdalen cared for Roger, and Roger cared for Magdalen, and at last she
had the key to Magdalen’s refusal of her son.

Mrs. Irving had heard from Frank of his ill success, and while
expressing some surprise, had told him not to despair, and had promised
to do what she could for the furtherance of his cause. It was no part of
her plan to speak to Magdalen then upon the subject, but she was more
than usually kind and affectionate in her manner towards the girl,
hoping that by this means the mother might succeed where the son had
failed. Now, however, an unlooked-for obstacle had arisen, and for once
Mrs. Walter Scott was uncertain what to do. She had never dreamed that
_Roger_ might fancy Magdalen, he was so much older and seemed to care so
little for women; but she was sure now that he did, and the hundred
thousand dollars she had looked upon as eventually sure seemed to be
fading from her grasp. There were wrinkles in her forehead when she left
the breakfast table, and her face wore a kind of abstracted look, as if
she were intently studying some new device or plan. It came to her at
last, and when next she was alone with Frank, she said, “I have been
thinking that it might be well for you to get _Roger’s_ consent for you
to address Magdalen.”

“Roger’s consent!” Frank repeated, in some surprise. “I should say
Magdalen’s consent was of more consequence than Roger’s.”

“Yes, I know,” and the lady smiled meaningly. “You said to me once that
you loved Magdalen well enough to take her on any terms, and wait for
the affection she withholds from you now.”

“Yes, I said so; but what of it?” Frank asked; and his mother replied,
“I think I know Magdalen better than you do. She has implicit confidence
in Roger’s judgment, and an intense desire to please him. Let her once
believe he wishes her to marry you, and the thing is done. At least, it
is worth the trial, and I would speak to Roger without delay and get his
consent. Or stay,” she added, as she reflected that Frank would probably
make a bungle and let out that Magdalen had refused him once, “I will do
it for you. A woman knows so much better what to say than a man.”

Frank had but little faith in his mother’s scheme, and he was about to
tell her so, when Magdalen herself came in. She had just returned from
accompanying Roger as far as the end of the avenue on his way to his
office. He told her that a walk in the bracing air would do her good,
and had taken her with him to the gate which was the entrance to the
Millbank grounds. There they had lingered a little, and Roger had seemed
more lover-like than ever before, and Magdalen’s eyes had shone on him
like stars and kept him at her side long after he knew he ought to be at
his office, where some of his men were waiting for him. At last, warned
by the striking of the village clock of the lateness of the hour, he
said a final good-by, and Magdalen returned to the house, flushed with
excitement and radiant with happiness, which showed itself in her eyes
and face, and in her unusual graciousness towards Frank. Now that she
began herself to know what it was to love, and how terrible it would be
to lose the object of her love, she pitied Frank so much, and never
since that night in the library had she seemed to him so much like the
Magdalen of old as she did, when, with her large straw hat upon her arm,
she stood talking with him a few moments, mingling much of her old
coquetry of manner with what she said, and leaving him at last perfectly
willing that his mother should do anything which would further his cause
with Magdalen.

That night, when dinner was over and Magdalen was with Hester, who was
recovering rapidly, Mrs. Walter Scott took her balls of worsted and her
crocheting, and knocking softly at the door of the library, where she
knew Roger was, asked if she might come in. He thought it was Magdalen’s
knock, and looked a little disappointed when he found who his visitor
was. But he bade her come in, and bringing a chair for her near to the
light, asked what he could do for her.

“I want to talk with you about Frank and Magdalen,” Mrs. Irving said.
“You must of course have seen the growing affection between the young
people?”

Mrs. Walter Scott pretended to be very busy counting her stitches, but
she managed to steal a side glance at her companion, who fairly gasped
at what he had heard, and whose fingers fluttered nervously among the
papers on the table, on one of which he kept writing, in an absent kind
of way and in every variety of hand, the name of Magdalen. He had _not_
noticed the growing affection between the young people; that is, he had
seen nothing on Magdalen’s part to warrant such a conclusion. Once, just
after his return from Europe, he had thought his nephew’s attentions
very marked, and a thought had crossed his mind as to what might
possibly be the result. But all this was past, as he believed, and his
sister’s intelligence came upon him like a thunderbolt, stunning him for
an instant, and making him powerless to speak. Those were fierce
heart-pangs which Roger was enduring, and they showed themselves upon
his face, which was very pale, and the corners of his mouth twitched
painfully, but his voice was steady and natural as he said at last,—

“And Magdalen,—does she—have you reason to believe she would return a
favorable answer to Frank’s suit?”

Mrs. Irving was sure now that what she had suspected was true, and that
nothing but a belief in Magdalen’s preference for another would avail
with him, so she replied unhesitatingly,—

“Certainly I do. I have suspected for years that she was strongly
attached to Frank, and her manner towards him fully warrants me in that
belief. She is the soul of honor, and never professes what she does not
feel.”

“Ye-es,” Roger said, with something between a sigh and a long-drawn
breath, assenting thus to what his sister said, and trying to reconcile
with it Magdalen’s demeanor toward himself of late.

If she was attached to Frank, and had been for years, why that sudden
kindling of her eyes, and that lighting up of her whole face whenever he
was with her, and why that sweet graciousness of manner towards him
which she had of late evinced? Was Magdalen a coquette, or was that the
way of girls? Roger did not know,—he had never made them a study, never
been interested in any girl or woman except Magdalen; and now, when he
must lose her, he began to feel that he had loved her always from the
moment when he took her as his child and first held her baby hands in
his, and laid her soft cheek against his own. She _was_ his,—he had a
better right to her than Frank, and he wrote her name all over the sheet
of paper on the table, and thought of all the castles he had built
within the last few weeks,—castles of the time when Magdalen would be
really his and he could lavish upon her the love and tender caresses he
would be coy of giving any one who was not his wife. Roger was naturally
very reserved,—and in his intercourse with Magdalen he had only shown
her glimpses of the deep, warm love he felt for her. He held peculiar
notions about such things, and he was sorry now that he did,—sorry that
he had not improved his opportunities and won her for his own before
Frank appealed to him, as he had done through his mother, and thus
sealed his lips forever. He was thinking of all this, and was so
absorbed in it that he forgot his sister was there watching him
narrowly, but veiling her watchfulness with her apparent interest in her
worsted work, which became strangely tangled and mixed, and required her
whole attention to unravel and set right. But she could not sit still
all the evening and let Roger fill that sheet of foolscap with
“Magdalen;” she must recall him to the point at issue, and so she said
at last,—

“Frank will do nothing without your sanction, and what he wants is your
permission, as Magdalen’s guardian, for him to address her. Can he have
it?”

Then Roger looked up a moment, and the pencil which had been so busy
began to trace a long black line through every name as if he thus would
blot out the sweetest dream of his life.

“Have my permission to address Magdalen? Yes—certainly, if he wants it.
I had thought—yes, I had hoped—I had supposed—”

Here Roger came to a full stop, and then, as the only thing he could do,
he added,—

“I thought I had heard something about a Miss Grey of New York, and that
probably has misled me. Was there nothing in that report?”

“Nothing,” Mrs. Irving replied. “Frank knew her in New Haven and met her
abroad, and so it was only natural he should call upon her in New York.
There is nothing in that rumor; absolutely nothing. Frank’s mind was too
full of Magdalen for him to care for a hundred Miss Greys. Poor foolish
boy, it brings my own youth back to me to see him so infatuated. I must
go to him now, for I know how anxiously he is waiting for me. Thank you
for the favorable answer I can give him.”

She hurried from the room and out into the hall, never stopping to heed
the voice which called after her,—

“Helen, oh, Helen!”

Roger did not know what he wanted to say to her. His call was a kind of
protest against her considering the matter settled as wholly as she
seemed to think it was. He could not give Magdalen up so easily,—he must
make one effort for himself,—and so he had tried to call his sister
back, but she did not hear him, and went on her way, leaving him alone
with his great sorrow.

Frank was in his own room, lazily reclining in his easy chair and about
finishing the second cigar in which he had indulged since dinner. He
took his third when his mother came in, for he saw that she had
something to tell him, and he could listen so much better when he was
smoking. With a faint protest against the atmosphere of the room, which
was thick with the fumes of tobacco, Mrs. Walter Scott began her story,
telling him that he had Roger’s consent to speak to Magdalen as soon as
he liked, but not telling him of her suspicions that Roger, too, would
in time have spoken for himself, if his nephew had not first taken the
field. It was strange that such a possibility had never occurred to
Frank. He, too, had a fancy that Roger was too old for Magdalen,—that he
was really more her father than her lover, and he never dreamed of him
as a rival.

“I wish you could arrange it with Magdalen as easily as you have with
Roger,” he said; and his mother replied, “She will think better of it
another time. Girls frequently say no at first.”

“But not the way Magdalen said it,” Frank rejoined. “She was in earnest.
She meant it, I am sure.”

“Try her with Roger’s consent. Tell her _he_ wishes it; not that he is
_willing_, but that he _wishes_ it. You will find that argument
all-powerful,” Mrs. Irving said.

Being a woman herself she knew how to work upon another woman’s
feelings, and she talked to and encouraged her son until he caught
something of her hopefulness, and saw himself the fortunate possessor of
all the glorious beauty and sprightliness embodied in Magdalen, who
little dreamed of what lay before her, and who next morning, at the
breakfast table, wondered at Frank’s exhilaration of spirits and Roger’s
evident depression. He was very pale, and bore the look of one who had
not slept; but he tried to be cheerful, and smiled a faint, sickly kind
of smile at Magdalen’s lively badinage with Frank, whom she teased and
coquetted with something after her olden fashion, not because she
enjoyed it, but because she saw there was a cloud somewhere, and would
fain dispel it. She never joked with Roger as she did with Frank; but
this morning when she met him in the hall, where he was drawing on his
gloves preparatory to going out, she asked him what was the matter, and
if he had one of his bad headaches coming on.

“His throat was a little sore,” he said; “he did not sleep much last
night, but the walk to the village would do him good.”

Magdalen had taken a long scarf from the hall-stand, and holding it
toward him, said, “It’s cold this morning, and my teeth fairly chattered
when I went out on the piazza for my run with old Rover. Please wear
this round your throat, Mr. Irving. Let me put it on for you.”

There was a soft light in her eyes and a look of tender interest in her
face, and Roger bent his head before her and let her wind the warm scarf
round his neck and throw the fringed ends over his shoulder. Roger was
tall, and Magdalen stood on tiptoe, with her arms almost meeting round
his neck as she adjusted the scarf behind, and her face came so near to
his that he could feel her breath stir his hair just as her presence
stirred the inmost depths of his heart, tempting him to take her in his
arms and beg of her not to heed Frank’s suit, but listen first to him,
who had the better right to her. But Roger was a prudent man; the hall
was not the place for love-making, so he restrained himself, and only
took one of Magdalen’s hands in his and held it while he thanked her for
her thoughtfulness.

“You are better than a physician, Magda. I don’t know what I should do
without you. I hope you will never leave Millbank.”

So much he did say, and his eyes had an earnest, pleading look in them,
which haunted Magdalen all the morning, and made her very happy as she
flitted about the house, or dashed off one brilliant piece after another
upon her piano, which seemed almost to talk beneath her spirited touch.

Meanwhile, Roger and Frank were alone in the office. The brisk wind
which was blowing in the morning had brought on an April shower of sleet
and rain, and there was not much prospect of visitors or clients. Roger
sat by his desk, pretending to read, while Frank at his table was doing
just what Roger had done the previous night, viz., writing Magdalen’s
name on slips of paper, and adding to it once the name of Irving, just
to see how it would look; and Roger, who got up for a book which was
over Frank’s head, saw it, and smiled sadly as he remembered that he,
too, had written “Magdalen Irving,” just as Frank was doing. There was a
little mirror over the table, where Frank had placed it for his own use;
for he was vain of his personal appearance, and his hair and collar and
necktie needed frequent fixing. Into this mirror Roger glanced and then
looked down upon his nephew, who at that moment seemed a boy compared
with him. Frank’s light hair and skin, and whitish, silky mustache, gave
him a very youthful appearance and made him look younger than he was,
while Roger had grown old within the night. There were no gray hairs, it
is true, among his luxuriant brown locks; but he was haggard and pale,
and there were dark circles beneath his eyes, and he felt tired and worn
and old,—too old to mate with Magdalen’s bright beauty. Frank was better
suited to her in point of age, and Frank should have her if she
preferred him. Roger reached this conclusion hastily, and then, by way
of strengthening it, pointed playfully to the name on the paper, and
asked, “Have you spoken to her yet?”

Frank was glad Roger had broached the subject, and he began at once to
tell what he meant to do and be, if Magdalen would but listen favorably
to him. He would study so hard, and overcome his laziness and his
expensive habits, and be a man, such as he knew he had not been, but
such as he felt he was capable of being with Magdalen as his leading
star. He had _not_ spoken to her yet, he said, but he should do so that
night, and he was glad to have Roger’s approval, as that would surely
bias Magdalen’s decision. Frank grew very enthusiastic, and drove his
penknife repeatedly into the table, and ran his fingers through his
hair, and pulled up his collar and looked in the glass; but never
glanced at Roger, to whom every word he uttered was like a stab, and
whose face was wet with perspiration as he listened and felt that his
heart was breaking.

“I’d better go away for a day or two, until the matter is settled, for
if I stay I might say that to Magdalen which would hardly be fair to
say, after Frank’s confiding in me as he has,” Roger thought; and, after
the mail came in, and he had some pretext for doing so, he announced his
intention of going to New York in the afternoon train. “I shall not go
to the house,” he said, “as I have some writing to do; so please tell
your mother where I have gone, and that I may not return until day after
to-morrow.”

With all his efforts to seem natural, there was something hurried and
excited in his manner, which Frank observed and wondered at, but he
attributed it to some perplexity in business matters, and never
suspected that it had anything to do with him and his prospective
affairs.

Roger talked but little that morning, but busied himself at his own
desk, until time for the train, when, with some directions to Frank as
to what to do in case certain persons called, he left his office and
went on his way to New York.

After Roger’s departure, Frank grew tired of staying alone. The day had
continued wet and uncomfortable, and few had dropped in at the office,
and these for only a moment. So, after a little, he started for
Millbank, resolving, if a good opportunity occurred, to speak to
Magdalen again on the subject uppermost in his mind. He did not see his
mother as he entered the house, but he met a servant in the hall and
asked for Magdalen.

“Miss Lennox was in Mrs. Floyd’s room,” the servant said, and Frank went
there to find her.

“I sent her up garret to shet a winder and hain’t seen her sense,”
Hester said in answer to his question. “She’s somewheres round, most
likely. Did you want anything particular?”

“No, nothing very particular,” was Frank’s reply, as he left the room
and continued his search for Magdalen, first in the parlors, and then in
the little room at the end of the upper hall, which had been fitted up
for a fernery.

Not finding her there and remembering what Hester had said about the
garret, he started at last in that direction, though he had but little
idea that she was there. If she had come down, as he supposed, she had
left the door open behind her, and he was about to shut it, when a sound
met his ear, which made him stop and listen until it was repeated. It
came again ere long,—a sound half way between a moan and a low, gasping
sob, and Frank ran swiftly up the stairs, for it was Magdalen’s voice,
and he knew now that Magdalen was in the garret.




                              CHAPTER XX.
                   WHAT MAGDALEN FOUND IN THE GARRET.


Magdalen had not forgotten “the loose plank,” but since the night of her
adventure in the garret she had never been near that part of the
building, though sorely tempted to do so every day and hour of her life.
It seemed to her as if some powerful influence was urging her on toward
the garret, while a still more powerful influence to which she gave no
name was constantly holding her back. She had puzzled over the loose
plank, and dreamed of it, and speculated upon it, and wondered if there
was anything under it, and if so, was it—, she never quite said _what_,
even to herself, for it seemed to her that she should in some way be
wronging Roger if she breathed the name of _will_. Of one thing,
however, she felt certain; if there _was_ a paper secreted in the
garret, old Hester knew of it, and had had a hand in hiding it; and once
she thought of quizzing Aleck to see if he too knew about it. She could
not have done much with him, for had he known of the will, he would, if
questioned with regard to it, have been so deaf that everybody in the
house would have heard the conversation. Aleck was not fond of talking,
and in order to avoid it, had a way, as Hester said, of affecting to be
deafer than he was, and so was usually left in peace. He always heard
Roger, and generally Magdalen; but to the rest of the household he was
as deaf as a post unless it suited him to hear. It was useless to
question him, and so Magdalen kept her own counsel for two weeks after
that memorable night when Roger had shared her vigils, and from which
time Hester’s recovery had been rapid.

She was able now to sit up all day, but had not yet been to the kitchen,
and when she asked Magdalen to go and shut the garret window which she
had left open in the morning and into which she was sure the rain was
pouring, Magdalen expressed a good deal of surprise that she should have
ventured into the garret, and asked why she went there.

“I wanted to look over them clothes in the chest; I knew they needed
airin’,” Hester said, and Magdalen accepted the explanation and started
for the garret.

It was raining fast, and as she opened the door which led up the stairs,
a gust of wind blew down into her face, and she heard the heavy rain
drops on the roof. The window was open as Hester had said, and Magdalen
shut it, and then stood a moment looking off upon the river and the
hills over which the April shower was sweeping in misty sheets. To the
right lay the little village of Belvidere, where Roger’s office was. She
could see the white building nestled among the elms in one corner of the
common, and the sight of it made her heart beat faster than its wont,
and brought before her the scene of the morning when Roger had held her
hand in his, and looked so kindly into her eyes. She could feel the
pressure of his broad, warm hand even now, and she felt her cheeks grow
hot beneath the look which seemed to beam upon her here in the gloomy
garret where there was only rubbish, and rats, and barrels, and chests,
and loose planks under the roof. She started, almost guiltily, when she
remembered the latter, and turned her face resolutely from that part of
the room, lest she should go that way and see for herself what was
hidden there. Hester had said, “I went to air the clothes in the old
chest,” and Magdalen turned to the chest and looked at it, carelessly at
first, then more closely, and finally went down on her knees to examine
something which made her grow cold and faint for a moment.

It was nothing but a large cobweb, but it covered the entire fastening
of the chest, stretching from the lid down across the keyhole, and
showing plainly that the chest had not been open in weeks. It could not
be opened without disturbing the cobweb, for Magdalen tried it, and saw
the fleecy thing torn apart as she lifted the lid. There was a paper
package lying on top of the linen, and from a rent in one corner
Magdalen saw a bit of the dress she had worn to Millbank. It was years
since she had seen it, and at the sight of it now she felt a thrill of
pain, and turned her head away. There was too much of mystery and
humiliation connected with that little dress for her to care to look at
it; and she shut the lid quickly, and said to herself, as she turned
away:

“Hester has not opened the chest to-day. What, then, was she here for?”

Then, swift as lightning, the answer came:

“She was here to look after whatever is hidden under that loose plank,
and probably to remove it.”

Yes, that was the solution of the mystery. If there _had_ been anything
under the floor, it had been transferred to some other hiding-place,
and, woman-like, Magdalen began to feel a little sorry that she had lost
her chance for knowing what was there.

“There can be no harm in looking now, if it is really gone,” she said;
and following some impulse she did not try to resist, she went toward
that part of the garret, putting a broken chair out of her way, and
bending down beneath the slanting rafters.

It was raining hard, and she went back a step or two, and glanced at the
window against which the storm was beating. She was not afraid there, in
broad daylight; but a strange feeling of awe and dread began to creep
over her, mingled with a firmer determination to explore that spot under
the floor. She did not believe she should find anything, but she _must_
look,—she must satisfy herself, let the consequence be what it might.
She did not think of Roger, nor the will, nor Frank, but, strange to
say, a thought of _Jessie_ crossed her mind,—Jessie, the drowned woman,
who seemed so near to her that she involuntarily looked over her
shoulder to see if a spectre were there. Then she bent low under the
beams,—went nearer to the loose plank,—had her hands upon it, and knew
that it did not fit as perfectly as on that night when she first
discovered it. It had been moved. Somebody had been there recently, and,
trembling with excitement, Magdalen grasped the plank, and drew it up
from its position, shrinking a little from the dark opening which looked
so like a grave. Gradually, as she saw clearer, she could distinguish
the lath and plastering, with bits of chips and shavings and sawdust,
and signs that the rats lived there. Then, leaning forward, she peered
down under the floor, looking to the north, looking to the east, then to
the south, and lastly to the west, where, pushed back as far as possible
from sight, was a little box, the cover of which was tied firmly down
with a bit of white Marseilles braid, such as Magdalen was trimming her
dress with a few days before in Hester Floyd’s room. She had missed
about half a yard, which could not at the time be found, but she had
found it now, and she grew dizzy and faint as she reached for the box,
and brought it out to the daylight.

Whatever the mystery was, she had it in her hands, and she sat down upon
a chair to recover her breath, and decide what she should do.

“Put it back where you found it,” was suggested to her; but she could
not do that, and seemingly without an effort on her part her fingers
nervously untied the hard knot, then slowly unwound the braid, which she
examined to see if it was soiled, and if there was not enough for the
pocket of her sack, if she decided to have one.

She thought there was, and she laid it on her lap and then opened the
lid!

There were two packages inside, and both were wrapped in thick brown
paper, which Magdalen removed carefully, and without the least agitation
now. Her excitement had either passed or was so great that she did not
heed it, and she was conscious of no emotions whatever as she sat there
removing the paper wrappings from what seemed to be a _letter_, an old,
yellow, soiled letter, directed to “Master Roger L. Irving,” in a
handwriting she did not know. She did not open the letter, but she read
the name and whispered it to herself, and thought by some strange
accident of that morning by the river when Roger had spoken of working
for her with his hands, and of her helping him in case he should lose
Millbank. Why she should recall that incident she could not tell any
more than she could guess that she held in her hands that which would
eventually lead to just such an alternative as Roger had suggested.

She put the letter down, and took the other package and removed its
wrappings and turned it to the light, uttering a cry of terror and
surprise at what was written there. She must read it,—she _would_ read
it and know the worst, and she opened the worn document, which was dated
back so many years, and read it through while her fingers seemed to grow
big and numb, and she felt her arms prickle to her shoulders. Once she
thought of paralysis, as the strange sensation went creeping through her
whole system, and she was conscious of feeling that she merited some
such punishment for the idle curiosity which had resulted so
disastrously.

She read every word that was written on the paper, and understood it,
too,—that is, understood what the dead old man had done, but not _why_
he had done it. That was something for which she could find no excuse,
no reason. Doubtless the letter directed to Roger contained the
explanation, if there was one; but that was sacred to her,—that was
Roger’s alone. She could not meddle with that; she would give it to him
just as she had found it.

“Poor wronged Roger; it will kill him,” she moaned; “and to think that I
should be the instrument of his ruin.”

She was rocking to and fro in her distress, with her hands locked
together around her knees, and her head bowed in her lap. What could she
do? What should she do? she asked herself, and something answered again,
“Put it where you found it, and keep your own counsel.”

Surely that advice was good, and Magdalen started to follow it, when
suddenly there came back to her the words, “If I believed it, I would
move heaven and earth to find it.”

Roger had spoken thus on that summer morning, which seemed so long ago.
Roger was honest; Roger was just; Roger would bid her take that dreadful
paper to him, though total ruin was the result.

Twice Magdalen started for the dark opening under the roof and as often
stopped suddenly, until at last, overcome with excitement and anguish,
she crouched down upon the floor, and moaned piteously, “Oh, Roger,
Roger, if you must be ruined, I wish it had fallen to the lot of some
other one to ruin you. Was it for this you brought me here? for this you
have been so kind to me? Oh, Roger, I cannot live to see you a beggar.
Why was it done? What was it for?”

The words she uttered were not intelligible, and only her sobbing moans
met Frank’s ear and sent him up the steep stairway to where she sat with
her face buried in her lap and the fatal paper clutched firmly in her
hand.

“Magdalen, what is it? What has happened to you?” Frank asked, and then
Magdalen first became aware of his presence.

Uttering a low scream she struggled to her feet, and turned toward him a
face the expression of which he never forgot, it was so full of pain and
anguish, of terror and mute entreaty. There was no escape now, for he
was there with her,—the heir, the supplanter of poor Roger. Heaven would
not suffer her to hide it as she might have done if left alone a little
longer. It had sent Frank to prevent the wrong, and she must do the
right in spite of herself. Magdalen thought all this during the moment
she stood confronting Frank,—then reaching toward him the soiled yellow
paper, she whispered hoarsely:

“Take it, Frank. It is yours, _all yours_; but oh, be merciful to
Roger.”

Mechanically Frank took the paper from her, and the next moment she was
on her knees before him trying to articulate something about “Roger,
poor Roger,” but failing in the effort. The sight of that paper in
Frank’s hands, and knowing that with it he held everything which Roger
prized so dearly, took sense and strength away, and she fainted at his
feet.

MAGDALEN HAD FOUND THE WILL!




                              CHAPTER XXI.
                          FRANK AND THE WILL.


Frank knew she had found the will, but he did not at all realize the
effect which the finding of it would have upon his future. He had not
read it like Magdalen,—he did not know that by virtue of what was
recorded there, he, and not Roger, was the heir of Millbank. He only
knew that Magdalen lay unconscious at his feet, her white forehead
touching his boot, and one of her hands clutching at his knee where it
had fallen when she raised it imploringly toward him, with a pleading
word for Roger. To lift her in his arms and bear her to the window,
which he opened so that the wind and rain might fall upon her face and
neck, was the work of an instant; and then, still supporting her upon
his shoulder, he rubbed and chafed her pale fingers and pushed her hair
back from her face, and bent over her with loving, anxious words, which
she did not hear and would scarcely have heeded if she had. Gradually as
the rain beat upon her face she came back to consciousness, and with a
cry tried to free herself from Frank’s embrace. But he held her fast,
while he asked what was the matter,—what had she found or seen to affect
her so powerfully?

“Don’t you know? Haven’t you read it?” she gasped; and Frank replied,
“No, Magdalen, I have not read it. My first care was for you,—always for
you, darling.”

She freed herself from him then, and struggling to her feet stood before
him with dilating nostrils and flashing eyes. She knew that the tone of
his voice meant _love_,—love for her who had refused it once,—aye, who
would refuse it a thousand times more now than she had before. He could
not have Millbank and her too. There was no Will on earth which had
power to take her from Roger and give her to Frank, and by some subtle
intuition Magdalen recognized for a moment all she was to Roger, and
felt that possibly he would prefer poverty with her to wealth without
her; just as a crust shared with him would be sweeter to her than the
daintiest luxury shared with Frank, who had called her his darling and
who would rival Roger in everything. Magdalen could have stamped her
foot in her rage that Frank should presume to think of love then and
there, when he must know what it was she had found for him,—what it was
he held in his hand. And here she wronged him; for he did not at all
realize his position, and he looked curiously at her, wondering to see
her so excited.

“Are you angry, Magdalen?” he asked. “What has happened to affect you
so? Tell me. I don’t understand it at all.”

Then Magdalen _did_ stamp her foot, and coming close to him, said,
“Don’t drive me mad with your stupidity, Frank Irving. You know as well
as I that I have found what when a child you once asked me to search
for,—you to whom Roger was so kind,—you, who would deal so treacherously
with Roger in his own house; and I promised I would do it,—I, who was
ten times worse than you. I was a beggar whom Roger took in, and I’ve
wounded the hand that fed me. I have found the will; but, Frank Irving,
if I had guessed what it contained I would have plucked out both my eyes
before they should have looked for it. You deceived me. You said it gave
you a _part_,—only a part. You told me false, and I hate you for it.”

She was mad now with her excitement, which increased as she raved on,
and she looked so white and terrible, with the fire flashing out in
gleams from her dark eyes, that Frank involuntarily shrank back from her
at first, and kept out of reach of the hands which made so fierce
gestures toward him as if they would do him harm. Then as he began to
recover himself, and from her words get some inkling of the case, he
drew her gently to him, saying as he did so, “Magdalen, you wrong me
greatly. Heaven is my witness that I always meant to give you the same
impression of the will which I received from my mother, though really
and truly I never had much idea that there was one, and am as much
astonished to find there is as you can be. I have not read it yet, and I
am not responsible for what there is in it. I knew nothing of it, had
nothing to do with it; please don’t blame me for what I could not help.”

There was reason in what he said, and Magdalen saw it, and softened
toward him as she replied, “Forgive me, Frank, if in my excitement I
said things which sounded harshly, and blamed you for what you could not
help. But, oh! Frank, I am _so_ sorry for Roger, poor Roger. Say that
you won’t wrong him. Be merciful; be kind to him as he has been to you.”

Frank’s perceptions were not very acute, but he would have been indeed a
fool if in what Magdalen said he had failed to detect a deeper interest
in Roger than he had thought existed. He did detect it, and a fierce
pang of jealousy shot through his heart as he began to see what the
obstacle was which stood between himself and Magdalen.

“I do not understand why you should be so distressed about Roger, or beg
of _me_ to be merciful,” he said; but Magdalen interrupted him with a
gesture of impatience.

“Read that paper and you will know what I mean. You will see that it
makes Roger a beggar, and gives you all his fortune. He has
nothing,—nothing comparatively.”

Frank understood her now. He knew before that the lost will was found,
and he supposed that possibly he shared equally with Roger, but he never
dreamed that to him was given all, and to Roger nothing; and as Magdalen
finished speaking he opened the paper nervously and read it through,
while she sat watching him, her eyes growing blacker and brighter and
more defiant, as she fancied she saw a half-pleased expression flit
across his face when he read that _he_ was the lawful heir of Millbank.
He had been defrauded of his rights for years, had murmured against his
poverty and his dependence, and thought hard things of the old man in
his grave who had left him only five thousand dollars. But that was over
now. Poverty and dependence were things of the past. The old man in his
grave had willed to Frank, his beloved grandchild, all his property
except a few legacies similar to those in the older will, and the paltry
sum left to “the boy known as Roger Lennox Irving.” That was the way it
was worded, not “My son Roger,” but “the boy known as Roger Lennox
Irving.” To him was bequeathed the sum of Five Thousand dollars, and the
farm among the New Hampshire hills known as the “Morton” place. That was
all Roger’s inheritance, and it is not strange that Frank sat for a
moment speechless. Had he shared equally with Roger he would not have
been surprised; but why he should have the whole and Roger nothing, he
did not understand. The injustice of the thing struck him at first quite
as forcibly as it did Magdalen, and more to himself than her, he said,
“There must be some mistake. My grandfather would never have done this
thing in his right mind. Where did you find it, Magdalen?”

He did not seem elated, as she feared he might. She had done him
injustice, and with far more toleration than she had felt for him at
first, Magdalen told him where she had found it and why she chanced to
look there, and pointed to the signatures of Hester and Aleck Floyd as
witnesses to the will.

“Hester hid it,” she said, “because she knew it was unjust, and it was
the fear of its being found which troubled her so much.”

“That is probable,” Frank rejoined; “but still I can see no reason for
my grandfather’s cutting Roger off with a mere pittance. It is cruel. It
is unjust.”

“Oh, Frank,” Magdalen cried, and the tears which glittered in her eyes
softened the fiery expression they had worn a few moments before.
“Forgive me; I was harsh towards you at first, but now I know you mean
to do right. You _will_, Frank. You certainly _will_ do right.”

Magdalen had recovered her powers of speech and she talked rapidly,
begging Frank to be generous with Roger, to leave him Millbank, to let
him stay in the beautiful home he loved so much. “Think of all he has
done for you,” she said, clasping her hands upon his arm and looking at
him with eyes from which the tears were dropping fast. “Were you his son
he could hardly have done more; and he has been so kind to me,—me who
have requited his kindness so cruelly. Oh, Roger, Roger, I would give my
life to spare him this blow!”

She covered her face with her hands, while Frank sat regarding her
intently, his affection for her at that moment mastering every other
emotion and making him indifferent to the great fortune which had so
suddenly come to him. Love for Magdalen was the strongest sentiment of
which he was capable, and it was intensified with the suspicion that
Roger was preferred to himself. He could interpret her distress and
concern for his uncle in no other way. Gratitude alone could never have
affected her as she was affected, and Frank’s heart throbbed with
jealousy and fear and intense desire to secure Magdalen for himself.
There had been a momentary feeling of exultation when he thought of his
poverty as a thing of the past, but Magdalen’s love was worth more to
him than a dozen Millbanks, and in his excitement no sacrifice seemed
too great which would secure it.

“Oh, Roger, Roger, I would give my life to spare him this blow!”
Magdalen had cried; and with these words still ringing in his ears,
Frank said to her at last, “Magdalen, you need not give your life; there
is a far easier way by which Roger can be spared the pain of knowing
that Millbank is not his. He never need to know of this will; no one
need to know of it but ourselves,—you and me, Magdalen. We will keep the
secret together, shall we?”

Magdalen had lifted up her head, and was listening to him with an eager,
wistful expression in her face, which encouraged him to go on.

“But, Magdalen, my silence must have its price, and that price is
_yourself_!”

She started from him then as if he had stung her, but soon resumed her
former attitude, and listened while he continued:

“I asked you once, and you refused me, and I meant to try and abide by
your decision, but I cannot give you up; and when I found that Roger
favored my suit and would be glad if you could give me a favorable
answer, I resolved to try again, and came home this very afternoon with
that object in view.”

Frank stopped abruptly, struck with the look of anguish and pain and
surprise which crept into Magdalen’s eyes as he spoke of “Roger’s
favoring his suit.”

“Roger consent; oh no, not that. Roger never wished that,” Magdalen
exclaimed, in a voice full of bitter disappointment. “Did Roger wish it,
Frank? _Did_ he say so, sure?”

Few men, seeing Magdalen moved as she was then, would have urged their
own claims upon her; but Frank was different from most men. He had set
his hopes on Magdalen, and he must win her, and the more obstacles he
found in his way the more he was resolved to succeed. He would not see
the love for Roger which was so apparent in all Magdalen said and did.
He would ignore that altogether, and he replied, “Most certainly he
wishes it, or he would not have given his consent for me to speak to you
again. I talked with him about it the last thing this morning before he
started for New York. Did I tell you he had gone there? He has, and
expects it to be settled before his return. I am well aware that this is
not the time or place for love-making, but your great desire to spare
Roger from a knowledge of the will wrung from me what otherwise I would
have said at another time. Magdalen, I have always loved you, from the
morning I put you in your candle-box and knelt before you as my
princess. You were the sweetest baby I ever saw. You have ripened into
the loveliest woman, and I want you for my wife. I have wanted money
badly, but now that I have it, I will gladly give it all for you. Only
say that you will be mine, and I’ll burn this paper before your eyes,
and swear to you solemnly that not a word regarding it shall ever pass
my lips. Shall I do it?”

Magdalen was not looking at him now. When he assured her of Roger’s
consent to woo her for himself, and that he “expected it to be settled
before his return,” she had turned her face away to hide the bitter pain
she knew was written upon it. She had been terribly mistaken. She had
believed that Roger cared for her, and the knowing that he did not, that
he could even give his consent for her to marry _Frank_, was more than
she could bear, and she felt for a moment as if every ray of happiness
had, within the last hour, been stricken from her life.

“Shall I do it? only speak the word, and every trace of the will shall
be destroyed.”

That was what Frank said to her a second time, and then Magdalen turned
slowly toward him, but made him no reply. She scarcely realized what he
was asking, or what he meant to do, as he took a match from his pocket
and struck it across the floor. Gradually a ring of smoke came curling
up and floated toward Magdalen, who sat like a stone gazing fixedly at
the burning match, which Frank held near to the paper.

“Tell me, Magdalen, will you be my wife, if I burn the will?” he asked
again; and then Magdalen answered him, “Oh, Frank, don’t tempt me thus.
How can I? Oh, Roger, Roger!”

She was beginning to waver, and Frank saw it, and too much excited
himself to know what he was doing, held the match so near the paper that
it began to scorch, and in a moment more would have been in a blaze.
Then Magdalen came to herself, and struck the match from Frank’s hand,
and snatching the paper from him, said, vehemently, “You must not do it.
Roger would not suffer it, if he knew. Roger is honorable, Roger is
just. _I_ found the paper, Frank. _I_ will carry it to Roger, and tell
him it was I who ruined him. I will beg for his forgiveness, and then go
away and die, so I cannot witness his fall.”

She had risen to her feet, and was leaving the garret, but Frank held
her back. He could not part with her thus; he could not risk the
probable consequences of her going to Roger, as she had said she would.
But one result could follow such a step, and that result was death to
all Frank most desired. Millbank weighed as nothing when compared with
Magdalen, and Frank made her listen to him again, and worked upon her
pity for Roger until, worried and bewildered, and half-crazed with
excitement, she cried out, “I’ll think about it, Frank. I will love you,
if I can. Give me a week in which to decide; but let me go now, or I
shall surely die.”

She tore herself from him, and was hurrying down the stairs with the
will grasped in her hands, when suddenly she stopped, and, offering it
to Frank, said to him, “Put it under the floor where I found it. Let it
stay there till the week is up.”

There was hope in what she said, and Frank hastened to do her bidding,
and then went softly down the stairs, and passed unobserved through the
hall out into the rain, which seemed so grateful to him after his recent
excitement. He did not care to meet his mother just then, and so he
quietly left the house, and walked rapidly down the avenue toward the
village, intending to strike into the fields and go back to Millbank at
the usual dinner hour, so as to excite no suspicions.

To say that Frank felt no elation at the thought of Millbank belonging
to him, would be wrong; for, as he walked along, he was conscious of a
new and pleasant feeling of importance, mingled with a feeling that he
was very magnanimous, too, and was doing what few men in his position
would have done.

“All mine, if I choose to claim it,” he said to himself once, as he
paused on a little knoll and looked over the broad acres of the Irving
estate, which stretched far back from the river toward the eastern
hills. “All mine, if I choose to have it so.”

Then he looked away to the huge mill upon the river, the shoe-shop
farther on, and thought of the immense revenue they yielded, and then
his eye came back to Millbank proper,—the handsome house, embowered in
trees, with its velvety lawn and spacious grounds, and its ease and
luxury within. “All his,” unless he chose to throw it away for a girl,
who did not love him, and who, he believed, preferred Roger and poverty
and toil, to luxury and Millbank and himself. Had he believed otherwise,
had no suspicion of her preference for Roger entered his mind, he might
have hesitated a moment ere deciding to give up the princely fortune
which had come so suddenly to him. But the fact that she was hard to win
only enhanced her value, and he resolutely shut his eyes to the
sacrifice he was making for her sake, and thought instead how he would
work for her, deny himself for her, and become all that her husband
ought to be.

“She _shall_ love me better than she loves Roger. She shall never regret
her choice if she decides for me,” he said, as he went back to the
house, which he reached just as dinner was announced.

Mrs. Walter Scott had not seen him when he first came home in the
afternoon, but she saw him leave the house and hurry down the avenue,
while something in his manner indicated an unusual degree of
perturbation and excitement A few moments later she found Magdalen in
her own room, lying upon the sofa, her face as white as marble, and her
eyes wearing so scared a look that she was greatly alarmed, and asked
what was the matter.

“A headache; it came on suddenly,” Magdalen said, while her lip quivered
and her eyes filled with tears, which ran down her cheeks in torrents,
as Mrs. Irving bent to kiss her, smoothing her forehead and saying to
her, “Poor child, you look as if you were suffering so much. I wish I
could help you. Can I?”

“No, nobody can help me,—nobody. Oh, is it a sin to wish I had never
been born?” was Magdalen’s reply, which confirmed Mrs. Walter Scott in
her suspicion that Frank had something to do with her distress.

Frank had spoken again and been refused, and they might lose the hundred
thousand after all. Mrs. Walter Scott could not afford to lose it. She
had formed too many plans which were all depending upon it to see it
pass from her without an effort to keep it, and bringing a little stool
to Magdalen’s side, she sat down by her and began to caress, and pity,
and soothe her, and at last said to her, “Excuse me, darling, but I am
almost certain that Frank has had more or less to do with your headache.
I know he has been here; did you see him?”

Magdalen made no reply, only her tears fell faster, and she turned her
face away from the lady, who continued, in her softest, kindest manner,
“My poor boy, I know all about it; can’t you love him? Try, darling, for
my sake as well as his. We could be so happy together. Tell me what you
said to him.”

“No, no, not now. Please don’t talk to me now. I am so miserable,” was
Magdalen’s reply, and with that Mrs. Walter Scott was obliged to be
content, until she found herself alone with her son at the dinner table.

Dismissing the servant the moment dessert was brought in, she asked him
abruptly “what had transpired between him and Magdalen to affect her so
strangely.”

Frank’s face was very pale, and he betrayed a good deal of agitation as
he asked in turn what Magdalen herself had said.

He had a kind of intuition that if his mother knew of the will, no power
on earth could keep her quiet. He believed she liked Magdalen, but he
knew she liked money better; and he was alarmed lest she should discover
his secret, and be the instrument of his losing what seemed more and
more desirable as one obstacle after another was thrown in his way.

Mrs. Irving repeated all that had passed between herself and Magdalen,
and then Frank breathed more freely, and told on his part what he
thought necessary to tell.

“Magdalen had been a good deal excited,” he said, “and had asked for a
week in which to consider the matter, and he had granted it. And
mother,” he added, “please let her alone, and not bother her with
questions, and don’t mention me to her above all things. ’Twill spoil
everything.”

Frank had finished his pudding by this time, and without waiting for his
mother’s answer he left the dining room and went at once to his own
chamber, where he passed the entire evening, thinking of the strange
discovery which had been made, wondering what Magdalen’s final decision
would be, and occasionally sending a feeling of longing and regret after
the fortune he was giving up.




                             CHAPTER XXII.
                    MRS. WALTER SCOTT AND THE WILL.


Roger came from New York the next evening. He could not stay from
Millbank any longer. He had made up his mind to face the inevitable. He
would make the best of it if Magdalen accepted Frank, and if she did
not, he would speak for himself at once. Roger was naturally hopeful,
and something told him that his chance was not lost forever, that Frank
was not so sure of Magdalen. He could not believe that he had been so
deceived or had misconstrued her kind graciousness of manner toward
himself. A thousand little acts of hers came back to his mind and
confirmed him in the belief that unless she was a most consummate
coquette, he was not indifferent to her. On reaching Belvidere, he went
straight to Millbank without stopping at the office. He was impatient to
see Magdalen, but she was not on the steps to meet him as was her custom
when he returned from New York or Boston, and only Mrs. Walter Scott’s
bland voice greeted him as he came in.

“Magdalen was sick with one of her neuralgic headaches,” she said, “and
had not left her room that day.”

Roger would not ask _her_ if it was settled. He would rather put that
question to Frank, who soon came in and inquired anxiously for Magdalen.
A person less observing than Roger could not have failed to see that the
Frank of to-day was not the same as the Frank of yesterday. He did not
mean to appear differently, but he could not divest himself wholly of
the feeling that by every lawful right he was master where he had been
so long a dependent, and there was in his manner an air of assurance and
independence, and even of patronage, toward Roger, who attributed it
wholly to the wrong source, and when his sister left the room for a
moment, he said, “I suppose I am to congratulate you, of course?”

Frank wanted to say yes, but the lie was hard to utter, and he answered,
“I think so. She wishes time to consider. Girls always do, I believe.”

Roger knew little of girls, he said, and he tried to smile and appear
natural, and asked who had called at the office during his absence, and
if his insurance agent had been to see about the mill and the shoe-shop.

Frank answered all his questions, and made some suggestions of his own
to the effect that if he were Roger he would insure in another company,
and do various other things differently.

“I am something of an old fogy, I reckon, and prefer following in my
father’s safe track,” Roger said, with a laugh, and then the
conversation ceased and the two men separated.

Magdalen’s headache did not seem to abate, and for several days she kept
her room, refusing to see any one but Hester and Mrs. Walter Scott, who
vied with each other in their attentions to her. Mrs. Walter Scott did a
good deal of tender nursing during those few days, and called Magdalen
by every pet name there was in her vocabulary, and kissed her at least a
dozen times an hour, and carried messages which she never sent to Frank,
who was in a state of great excitement, not only with regard to
Magdalen, but also the Will, thoughts of which drove him nearly frantic.
Every day of his life he mounted the garret stairs, and groping his way
to the loose plank, went down on his knees to see that it was safe. The
Will had a wonderful fascination for him; he could not keep away from
it, and one morning he took it from the box, and carrying it to the
window, sat down to read it again, and see if it really _did_ give
everything to him. For the first time then he noticed the expression,
“To the boy known as Roger Lennox Irving.”

It was a very singular way to speak of one’s child, he thought, and he
wondered what it could mean, and why his grandfather had, at the very
last, made so unjust a will; and he became so absorbed in thought as not
to hear the steps on the stairs, or see the woman who came softly to his
side and stood looking over his shoulder.

Magdalen had, at last, asked to see Frank. She had made up her mind, and
insisted upon being dressed, and meeting him in her little sitting-room,
which opened from her chamber.

“Do you feel quite equal to the task?” Mrs. Walter Scott had said,
kissing and caressing the poor girl, whose face was deathly pale, save
where the fever spots burned upon her cheeks. “You don’t know how
beautiful you look,” she continued, as she wrapped the shawl around
Magdalen, and then, with another kiss, went in quest of Frank.

No one had seen him except Celine, who remembered having met him in the
little passage leading to the garret stairs.

“He was there yesterday and the day before,” she said, and then passed
on, never dreaming of all which was to follow those few apparently
unimportant words.

“That is a strange place for Frank to visit every day,” Mrs. Walter
Scott thought, and, curious to know why he was there, she, too, started
for the garret. She always stepped lightly, and her soft French slippers
scarcely made a sound as she went up the stairs. Frank’s back was toward
her, and she advanced so cautiously that she stood close behind him
before he was aware of her presence. She saw the soiled paper he held in
his hand, read a few words, and then uttered a cry of exultation, which
started Frank to his feet, where he stood confronting her, his face as
white as marble, and his eyes blazing with excitement. His mother was
scarcely less pale than himself, and her eyes were fixed on his with an
unflinching gaze.

“Ah!” she said, and in that single interjection was embodied all the
cruel exultation and delight and utter disregard for Roger, and defiance
of the world, which the cold, hard woman felt.

Anon there broke about her mouth a peculiar kind of smile, which showed
her glittering teeth, and made Frank draw back from her a step or two,
while he held the paper closer in his hand, and farther away from her.
She saw the motion, and there was something menacing in her attitude as
she went close to him, and whispered,—

“I was right, after all. There _was_ another Will, which somebody hid.
Where did you find it?”

“Magdalen found it,” Frank involuntarily rejoined, mentally cursing
himself for his stupidity when it was too late.

“Magdalen found it? And is that what ails her? Let me see it, please.”

For a moment Frank was tempted to refuse her request, but something in
her face compelled him to unfold the paper and hold it while she read it
through.

“Why, Frank, it gives you _everything_,” she exclaimed, with joy
thrilling in every tone, as she clutched his arm, and looked into his
face. “I never supposed it quite as good as this.”

“Mother,” Frank said, drawing back from her again, “are you a fiend to
exult so over Roger’s ruin? Don’t you see it gives him a mere nothing,
and he the only son?”

All the manhood of Frank’s nature was roused by his mother’s manner, and
he was tempted for a moment to tear the will in shreds, and thus prevent
the storm which he felt was rising over Millbank.

“There may be a doubt about the ‘only son,’” Mrs. Walter Scott replied.
“A father does not often deal thus with his only surviving son. What do
you imagine _that_ means?” and she pointed to the words, “the boy known
as Roger Lennox Irving.”

Frank knew then what it meant; knew that in some way a doubt as to
Roger’s birth had been lodged in his grandfather’s mind, but it found no
answering chord in his breast.

“Never will I believe that of Roger’s mother. He is more an Irving than
I am, everybody says. Shame on you for crediting the story, even for a
moment, and my curse on the one who put that thought in the old man’s
heart, for it _was_ put there by somebody.”

He was cursing _her_ to her face, and he was going on to say still more
when she laid her hand over his mouth, and said,—

“Stop, my son. You don’t know whom you are cursing, nor any of the
circumstances. You are no judge of Jessie Morton’s conduct. Far be it
from me to condemn her now that she is dead. She was a silly girl,
easily influenced, and never loved your grandfather, who was three times
her age. We read that the parents’ sin shall be visited upon the
children, and if she sinned, her child has surely reaped the
consequences, or will when this Will is proved. Poor Roger! I, too, am
sorry for him, and disposed to be lenient; but he cannot expect us to
let things go on as they have done now that everything is reversed. How
did Magdalen happen to find it?”

She was talking very gently now, by way of quieting Frank, who told her
briefly what he knew of the finding of the Will, and then, little by
little as she adroitly questioned him, he let out the particulars of his
interview with Magdalen, and Mrs. Walter Scott knew the secret of
Magdalen’s distress. Her face was turned away from Frank, who did not
see the cold, remorseless expression which settled upon it, as she
thought of Magdalen’s pitting herself against the Millbank fortune.
Magdalen’s value was decreasing fast. The master of Millbank could
surely find a wife more worthy of him than the beggar girl who had been
deserted in the cars, and that Magdalen Lennox should not marry her son
was the decision she reached at a bound, and Frank must have suspected
the nature of her thoughts, as she sat nervously tapping her foot upon
the floor, and looking off through the window, with great wrinkles in
her forehead and between her eyes.

“Mother,” he said, and there was something pleading as well as
reproachful in his voice, “I did not mean that you should know of this,
and now that you do, I must beg of you to keep your knowledge to
yourself. I shall lose Magdalen if you do not, and I care more for her
than a hundred fortunes.”

His mother turned fully toward him now and said, sneeringly, “A
disinterested lover, truly. Perhaps when you promised to destroy the
Will you forgot the hundred thousand which, if Roger remained master
here, would come to you with Magdalen, and you made yourself believe
that you were doing a very unselfish and romantic thing in preferring
Magdalen and poverty to Millbank.”

“Mother,” Frank cried, “I swear to you that a thought of that hundred
thousand never crossed my mind until this moment. My love for Magdalen
is strong enough to brave poverty in any form for her sake.”

“And you really mean to marry her?”

She put the question so coolly that Frank gazed at her in astonishment,
wondering what she meant.

Of course he meant to marry her if she would take him; he would prefer
her to a thousand Millbanks. “And mother,” he added, “you shall not tell
her that _you_ know of the Will until after to-morrow. She is to give me
her answer then. Promise, or I will destroy this cursed paper before
your very eyes.”

He made a motion as if he would tear it in pieces, when, with a sudden
gesture, his mother caught it from him and held it fast in her own
hands.

“The Will is not safe with you,” she said. “I will keep it for you. I
shall not trouble Magdalen, but I shall go at once to Roger. I cannot
see you throw away wealth, and ease, and position for a bit of sentiment
with regard to a girl whose parentage is doubtful, to say the least of
it, and who can bring you nothing but a pretty face.”

She had put the Will in her pocket. There was no way of getting it from
her, except by force, and Frank saw her depart without a word, and knew
she was going to Roger. Suddenly it occurred to him that Roger might not
have left the office yet, and he started up, exclaiming, “I am the one
to tell him first, if he must know. I can break it to him easier than
mother. I shall not be hard on Roger.”

Thus thinking, Frank started swiftly across the fields in the direction
of Roger’s office, hoping either to meet him, or to find him there, and
trying to decide how he should break the news so as to wound his uncle
as little as possible, and make him understand that he was not in fault.




                             CHAPTER XXIII.
                          ROGER AND THE WILL.


The office was closed, the shutters down, and Roger gone. Frank had come
too late, and he swiftly retraced his steps homeward, hoping still to be
in time to tell the news before his mother. But his hopes were vain.
Roger had entered the house while Frank was in the garret, and Mrs.
Walter Scott heard him in his room as she passed through the hall after
her interview with her son. But she was too much agitated and too
flurried to speak to him just then. She must compose herself a little,
and utterly forgetful of Magdalen, who was waiting for Frank, and
growing impatient at his delay, she went to her own room and read the
Will again to make sure that all was right and Frank the lawful heir.
She could not realize it, it had come so suddenly upon her; but she knew
that it was so, and she bore herself like a queen when she at last
arose, and started for Roger’s room. It was the Mrs. Walter Scott of
former days resurrected and intensified who swept so proudly through the
hall, just inclining her head to the servant whom she met, and thinking,
as she had once thought before, how she would dismiss the entire
household and set up a new government of her own. There had been some
uncertainty attending the future when she made this decision before, but
now there was none. She held the document which made her safe in her
possessions; she was the lady of Millbank, and there was a good deal of
assurance in the knock, to which Roger responded “Come in.”

He was in his dressing-gown, and looking pale and worn just as he had
looked ever since his return from New York. Beside him in a vase upon
the table was a bouquet, which he had arranged for Magdalen, intending
to send it to her with her dinner. And Mrs. Walter Scott saw it and
guessed what it was for, and there flashed into her mind a thought that
she would make matters right between Roger and Magdalen; she would help
them to each other, and save Frank from the possibility of a
_mésalliance_. But Mrs. Walter Scott was a very cautious woman; she
always kept something in reserve in case one plan should fail, and now
there came a thought that possibly Roger might contest the Will and win,
and if he did, it might be well to reconsider Magdalen and her hundred
thousand dollars, so she concluded that for the present it would be
better not to throw Magdalen overboard. That could be done hereafter, if
necessary.

She was very gracious to Roger, and took the seat he offered her, and
played with her watch-chain, wondering how she should begin. It was
harder than she had anticipated,—telling a man like Roger that all he
had thought his, belonged to another; and she hesitated, and grew cold
and hot and withal a little afraid of Roger, who was beginning to wonder
why she was there, and what she wanted to say.

“Can I do anything for you, Helen?” he asked, just as he had once
before, when she came on an errand which had caused him so much pain.

Then she had come to tear Magdalen from him; now she was there to take
his fortune, his birthright away; and it is not strange that, cruel as
she was, she hesitated how to begin.

“Roger,” she said, in reply to his question, “I am here on a most
unpleasant errand, but one which, as a mother whose first duty is to her
son, I must perform. You remember the Will which at your father’s death
could not be found.”

She was taking it from her pocket, and Roger, who was quick of
comprehension, knew before she laid the worn paper upon the table, that
_the lost Will was found_! With trembling haste he snatched it up, and
she made no effort to restrain him. She had faith in the man she was
ruining. She knew the Will was safe in his hands; he would neither
destroy nor deface it. He would give it its due consideration, and she
sat watching him while he read it through, and pitying him, it must be
confessed, with all the little womanly feeling she had left. She would
have been a stone not to have pitied one whose lips uttered no sound as
he read, but quivered and trembled, and grew so bloodless and thin,
while his face dripped with the perspiration which started from every
pore and rolled down his chin in drops. She thought at first they were
tears, but when he lifted his eyes to hers as he finished reading, she
saw that they were dry, but oh, so full of pain and anguish and
surprise, and wounded love and grief, that his father should have
disinherited him for such a cause. He knew what the clause “the boy
known as Roger Lennox Irving” implied, and that hurt him more than all
the rest.

Why had his father believed such a thing of his mother, and who had told
him the shameful story? Leaning across the table to his sister he
pointed to the clause, and moving his finger slowly under each word,
said to her in a voice she would never have recognized as his, “Helen,
who poisoned my father’s mind with that tale?”

Mrs. Walter Scott did not know of the letter in Magdalen’s possession,
or how much Hester Floyd had overheard years before, when, with lying
tongue, she had hinted things she knew could not be true, and made the
old man mad with jealousy. She did not think how soon she would be
confronted with her lie, and she answered, “I do not know. It is the
first intimation I have heard of Squire Irving’s reason for changing his
Will.”

She had forgotten her language to Lawyer Schofield the night after the
funeral when the other Will was the subject of debate; but Roger
remembered it, and his eyes rested steadily on her face as he said, “You
do not know? You never heard it hinted that my mother was false, then?”

“Never,” she felt constrained to say, for there was something in those
burning eyes which threatened her with harm if by word or look she
breathed aught against the purity of poor Jessie Morton.

“Who found this Will, and where?” Roger asked her next, and with a mean
desire to pay him for that look, Mrs. Walter Scott replied, “Magdalen
found it. She has hunted for it at intervals, ever since she was a child
and heard that there was one.”

But she repented what she had said when she saw how deep her blow had
struck.

“Magda found it; oh, Magda, I would a thousand times rather it had been
some one else.”

That was what Roger said, as with a bitter groan he laid his head upon
the table, while sob after sob shook his frame and frightened his
sister, who had never dreamed of pain like this. Tearless sobs they
were, for Roger was not crying; he was writhing in anguish, and the sobs
were like gasping moans, so terrible was his grief. He remembered what
Magdalen had told him once of looking for the Will when she was a child,
and remembered how sorry she had seemed. Had she deliberately deceived
him, and, after he had told her that it was supposed to give Frank
nearly everything, had she resumed her search, hoping to find and
restore to her lover his fortune? Then he thought of that night with
Hester, and the cobweb in Magdalen’s hair. She had been to the garret,
according to her own confession, and she had looked for the missing Will
then and “at intervals” since, until she had found it and sent it to him
by Mrs. Walter Scott, instead of bringing it herself?

And he had loved her so much, and thought her so innocent and artless
and true,—his little girl through whom he had been so terribly wounded.
If she had come herself with it and given it into his hands and told him
all about it, he would not have felt one half so badly as to receive it
from another, and that other the cruel, pitiless woman whose real
character he recognized as he had never done before. He had nothing to
hope from her, nothing to hope from Frank, nothing from Magdalen. They
were all leagued against him. They would enjoy Millbank, and he would go
from their midst a ruined, heart-broken man, shorn of his love, shorn of
his fortune, and shorn of his name, if that dreadful clause, “the boy
known as Roger Lennox Irving,” really meant anything. He knew it was
false; he never for a moment thought otherwise; but it was recorded
against him by his own father, and after Magdalen, it was the keenest,
bitterest pang of all.

Could that have been stricken out and could he have kept Magdalen, he
would have given all the rest without a murmur.

As the will read, it was right that Frank should come into his
inheritance, and Roger had no thought or wish to keep him from it. He
did not meditate a warfare against his nephew, as his sister feared he
might. He had only given way for a few moments to the grief, and pain,
and humiliation which had come so suddenly upon him, and he lay, with
his face upon the table, until the first burst of the storm was over,
and his sobs changed to long-drawn breaths, and finally ceased entirely,
as he lifted up his head and looked again at the fatal document before
him.

Shocked at the sight of his distress, his sister had at first tried to
comfort him. With a woman’s quick perception she had seen that Magdalen
was the sorest part of all, and had said to him soothingly:

“It was by accident that Magdalen found it. She was greatly disturbed
about it.”

This did not tally with her first statement, that “Magdalen had sought
for it at intervals,” and Roger made a gesture for her to stop. So she
sat watching him, and trembling a little, as she began dimly to see what
the taking of Millbank from Roger would involve.

“Excuse me, Helen,” he said, with all his old courtesy of manner, as he
wiped the sweat-drops from his beard. “Excuse me if, for a moment, I
gave way to my feelings in your presence. It was so sudden, and there
were so many sources of pain which met me at once, that I could not at
first control myself. It was not so much the loss of my fortune. I could
bear that—”

“Then you do not intend to contest the will?” Mrs. Walter Scott said.

It was a strange question for her to ask then, and she blushed as she
did it; but she must _know_ what the prospect was, while underlying her
own selfish motives was a thought that if Roger did _not_ mean to
dispute the right with Frank, she would brave the displeasure of her
son, and then and there pour balm into the wound, by telling Roger of
her belief that he was, and always had been, preferred to Frank by
Magdalen. But she was prevented from this by the abrupt entrance of
Frank himself. He had heard that his mother was with Roger, and had
hastened to the room, seeing at a glance that the blow had been given;
that Roger had seen the will; and for a moment he stood speechless
before the white face and the soft blue eyes which met him so wistfully
as he came in. There was no reproach in them, only a dumb kind of
pleading as if for pity, which touched Frank’s heart to the very core,
and brought him to Roger’s side.

Roger was the first to speak. Putting out his hand to Frank, he tried to
smile, and said:

“Forgive me, boy, for having kept you from your own so long. If I had
believed for a moment that there was such a will, I would never have
rested day or night till I had found it for you. I wish I had. I would
far rather I had found it than—than——”

He could not say “Magdalen,” but Frank knew whom he meant, and, in his
great pity for the wounded man, he was ready to give up everything to
him _but_ Magdalen. He must have _her_, but Roger should keep Millbank.

“I believe that I am more sorry than you can be that the will is found,”
he said, still grasping Roger’s hand. “And I want to say to you now that
I prefer you should keep the place just as you have done. There need be
no change. Only give me enough to support myself and—and——”

_He_ could not say Magdalen either, for he was not so sure of her, but
Roger said it for him.

“Support yourself and Magdalen. I know what you mean, my boy. You are
very generous and kind, but right is right. When I thought Millbank
mine, I kept it. Now that I know it is not mine, I shall accept _no part
of it_, however small.”

He spoke sternly, and his face began to harden. He was thinking of the
clause, “the boy known as Roger Lennox Irving.” He could take no part of
the estate of the man who had dictated those cruel words. He was too
proud for that; he would rather earn his bread by the sweat of his brow
than be beholden to one who could believe such things of his mother.
Frank saw the change in his manner, and anxious to propitiate him, began
again to urge his wish that Roger would, at least, allow him to divide
the inheritance in case the will was proved, but Roger stopped him
impatiently.

“It is not you, my boy, whose gift I refuse. If you cannot understand
me, I shall not now explain. I’ve lived on you for years. I can never
repay that, for I feel as if all my energies were crippled, so I will
let that obligation remain, but must incur no other. As to proving the
will,” and Roger smiled bitterly when he saw how eagerly his sister
listened, and remembered the question she had asked him just as Frank
came in, and which he had not yet answered, “As to proving the will, you
will have no trouble there. I certainly shall make none. You will find
it very easy stepping into your estate.”

Mrs. Walter Scott drew a long breath of relief and sank into her chair,
in the easy, contented, languid attitude she always assumed when
satisfied with herself and her condition. She roused up, however, when
Roger went on to say:

“One thing I must investigate, and that is, _who_ hid this will, and
why. Have you any theory?” and he turned to his sister, who replied, “I
have always suspected Hester Floyd. She was a witness, with her
husband.”

“Why did you always suspect her, and what reason had you for believing
there was a later will than the one made in my favor?” Roger asked, and
his sister quailed beneath the searching glance of his eyes.

She could not tell him all she knew, and she colored scarlet and
stammered out something about Mrs. Floyd’s strange manner at the time of
the Squire’s funeral, nearly twenty years ago.

“Frank, please go for Hester,” Roger said. “We will hear what she has to
say.”

Frank bowed in acquiescence, and, leaving the room, was soon knocking at
Hester Floyd’s door.




                             CHAPTER XXIV.
                          HESTER AND THE WILL.


Hester was sitting by her fire knitting a sock for Roger, and Aleck was
with her, smoking his pipe in the corner, and occasionally opening his
small, sleepy eyes to look at his better half when she addressed some
remark to him. They were a very quiet, comfortable, easy-looking couple
as they sat there together in the pleasant room which had been theirs
for more than forty years, and their thoughts were as far as possible
from the storm-cloud bursting over their heads, and of which Frank was
the harbinger.

“Mrs. Floyd, Mr. Irving would like to see you in the library,” Frank
said a little stiffly, and in his manner there was a tinge of importance
and self-assurance unusual to him when addressing the _head_ of
Millbank, Mrs. Hester Floyd.

Hester did not detect this manner, but she saw that he was agitated and
nervous, and she dropped a stitch in her knitting as she looked at him
and said, “Roger wants me in the library? What for? Has anything
happened that you look white as a rag?”

Frank was twenty-seven years old, but there was still enough of the
child about him to make him like to be first to communicate news whether
good or bad, and to Hester’s question he replied, “Yes. _The missing
will is found._”

Hester dropped a whole needle full of stitches, and she was whiter now
than Frank as she sprang to Aleck’s side and shook him so vigorously
that the pipe fell from his mouth, and the stolid, stupid look left his
face for once as she said: “Do you hear, Aleck, the will is found! The
will that turns Roger out-doors.”

Aleck did not seem so much agitated as his wife, and after gazing
blankly at her for a moment, he slowly picked up his pipe and said, with
the utmost nonchalance, “You better go and see to’t. You don’t want me
along.”

She did _not_ want him; that is, she did not need him; and with a
gesture of contempt she turned from him to Frank, and said, “I am ready.
Come.”

There was nothing of the deference due to the heir of Millbank in her
tone and manner. Frank would never receive that from her, and she
flounced out into the hall, and kept a step or two in advance of the
young man, to whom she said, “Who is with Roger? Anybody?”

As she came nearer to the library she began to have a little dread of
what she might encounter, and visions of lawyers and constables, armed
and equipped to arrest her bodily, flitted uneasily before her mind; but
when Frank replied, “There is no one there but mother,” her fear
vanished, and was succeeded by a most violent fit of anger at the
luckless Mrs. Walter Scott.

“The jade!” she said. “I always mistrusted how her snoopin’ around would
end. If I’d had my way, she should never have put foot inside this
house, the trollop.”

“Mrs. Floyd, you are speaking of my mother. You must stop. I cannot
allow it.”

It was the master of Millbank who spoke, and Hester turned upon him
fiercely.

“For the Lord’s sake, how long since you took such airs? I shall speak
of that woman how and where I choose, and you can’t help yourself.”

By this it will be seen that Hester was not in the softest of moods as
she made her way to the library, but her feelings changed the moment she
stood in the room where Roger was. She had expected to find him hot,
excited, defiant, and ready, like herself, to battle with those who
would take his birthright from him. She was not prepared for the
crushed, white-faced man who looked up at her so helplessly as she came
in, and tried to force a smile as he pointed to a chair at his side, and
said,—

“Sit here by me, Hester. It is you and I now. You and I alone.”

His chin quivered a little as he held the chair for her to sit down, and
then kept his hand on her shoulder as if he felt better stronger so. He
knew he had her sympathy, that every pulsation of her heart beat for
him, that she would cling to him through weal and woe, and he felt a
kind of security in having her there beside him. Hester saw the yellow,
soiled paper spread out before him, and recognized it at a glance. Then
she looked across the table toward the proud woman who sat toying with
her rings, and exulting at the downfall of poor Roger. At her Hester
glowered savagely, and was met by a derisive smile, which told how
utterly indifferent the lady was to her and her opinion. Then Hester’s
glance came back, and rested pityingly on her boy, whose finger now was
on the will, and who said to her,—

“Hester, there _was_ another will, as Helen thought. It is here before
me. It was found under the garret floor. Do you know who put it there?”

He was very calm, as if asking an ordinary question, and his manner went
far toward reassuring Hester, who, by this time, had made up her mind to
tell the truth, and brave the consequences.

“Yes,” she replied. “I put it there myself, the day your father died.”

“I told you so,” dropped from Mrs. Walter Scott’s lips; but Hester paid
no heed to her.

She was looking at Roger, fascinated by the expression of his eyes and
face as he went on to question her.

“Why did you hide it, and where did you find it?”

“It was lying on the table, where Aleck found him dead, spread out
before him, as if he had been reading it over, as I know he had, and he
meant to change it, too, for he’d asked young Schofield to come that
night and fix it. Don’t you remember Schofield said so?”

Roger nodded, and she continued:

“And I know by another way that he meant to change it. ’Twas so writ in
his letter to you.”

“His letter to _me_, Hester? There was nothing like that in the letter,”
Roger exclaimed; and Hester continued:

“Not in the one I gave to you, I know. That he must have begun first,
and quit, because he blotched it, or something. Any ways, there was
another one finished for you, and in it he said he was goin’ to fix the
will, add a cod-cil or something, because he said it was unjust.”

“Why did you withhold that letter from me, Hester, and where is it now?”

Roger spoke a little sternly, and glad of an excuse to turn his
attention from herself to some one else, Hester replied,—

“It was in the same box with t’other paper, and I s’pose _she’s_ got it
who snooped till she found the will.”

She glanced meaningly at Mrs. Walter Scott, who deigned her no reply,
but who began to feel uneasy with regard to the letter of which she had
not before heard, and whose contents she did not know.

Neither Roger nor Frank wished to mix Magdalen up with the matter, if
possible to avoid it, and no mention was made of her then, and Hester
was suffered to believe it was Mrs. Walter Scott who had found the will.

“You read the letter, Hester. Tell me what was in it,” Roger said.

And then Hester’s face flushed, and her eyes flashed fire, as she
replied,—

“There was in it that which had never or’ to be writ. He giv the reason
why he made this will. He was driv to it by somebody who pisoned his
mind with the biggest, most impossible slander agin the sweetest,
innocentest woman that ever drawed the breath.”

Roger was listening eagerly now, with a fiery gleam in his blue eyes,
and his nostrils quivering with indignation.

Mrs. Walter Scott was listening, too, her face very pale, except where a
bright spot of red burned on her cheeks, and her lips slightly apart,
showing her white teeth.

Frank was listening also, and gradually coming to an understanding of
what had been so mysterious before.

Neither of the three thought of interrupting Hester, who had the field
to herself, and who, now that she was fairly launched, went on rapidly:

“I’ll make a clean breast of it, bein’ the will is found, which I never
meant it should be, and then them as is mistress here now can take me to
jail as soon as they likes. It don’t matter, the few days I’ve got left
to live. I signed that fust Will, me and Aleck, twenty odd year ago, and
more, and I knew pretty well what was in it, and that it was right, and
gin the property to the proper person; and then I thought no more about
it till a few months before he died, when Aleck and me was called in
agin to witness another will, here in this room, standin’ about as I set
now, with the old gentleman where _that_ woman is, Aleck where you be,
and Lawyer Schofield where Mr. Franklin stands. I thought it was a queer
thing, and mistrusted somethin’ wrong, particularly as I remembered a
conversation I overheard a week or so before about you, Roger, and your
mother, compared to who, that other woman ain’t fit to live in the same
place; and she won’t neither, she’ll find, when we all get our dues.”

Both Roger and Frank knew she referred to Mrs. Walter Scott, who, if
angry glances could have annihilated her, would have done so. But Hester
was not afraid of her, and went on, not very connectedly, but still
intelligibly, to those who were listening so intently:

“She pisoned his mind with snaky, insinuatin’ lies, which she didn’t
exactly speak out, as I heard, but hinted at, and made me so mad that I
wanted to throttle her then, and I wish I had bust into the room and
told her it was all a lie, as I could prove and swear to; for, from the
day Jessie Morton married Squire Irving until the summer she went to
Saratoga, when you, Roger, was quite a little shaver, she never laid
eyes on that man, who was her ruin afterward. I know it is so, and so
does others, for I’ve inquired; and if the scamp was here, he’d tell you
so, which I wish he was, and if I knew where to find him, I’d go on my
hands and knees to get his word, too, that what this good-for-nothing
snake in the grass told was a lie!”

Human nature could endure no more, and Mrs. Walter Scott sprang to her
feet, and turning to her son, asked,—

“If he, a man, would sit quietly, and hear his mother so abused?”

“You have a right to stop her,” she said, as she saw Frank hesitate. “A
right to turn her out of the house.”

“I’d like to see him do it,” Hester rejoined, her old face aglow with
passion and fierce anger.

“Hush, Hester, hush,” Roger said, in his quiet, gentle way; “and you,
Helen, sit down and listen. If I can bear this, you certainly can.”

The perspiration was rolling from his face in great drops a second time,
and something like a groan broke from his lips as he covered his eyes
with his hands and said, “My mother, oh, my mother, that I should hear
her so maligned.”

“She wan’t maligned,” Hester exclaimed, misinterpreting the meaning of
the word. “It was a lie, the whole on’t. She never left this house
except for church or parties, and only three of them, one to Miss
Johnson’s, one to Squire Schofield’s, and one to Mrs. Lennox’s, and a
few calls, from the time she came here till after you was born; I know,
I was here, I was your nurse, I waited on her, and loved her like my own
from the moment she cried so on my neck and said she didn’t want to come
here. She was too young to come as his wife. She was nothin’ but a
child, and when she couldn’t stan’ the racket any longer she run away.”

Roger was shaking now as with an ague fit. Here was something which
Hester could not deny. Jessie had run away and left him, her baby boy.
There was no getting smoothly over that, and he shivered with pain as
the old woman went on:

“I don’t pretend to excuse her, though there’s a good deal to be said on
both sides, and it most broke her heart, as a body who see her as I did
that last night at home would know.”

“Hester,” Roger said, and his voice was full of anguish, “why must you
tell all this. It surely has nothing to do with the matter under
consideration, and I would rather be spared, if possible, or at least
hear it alone.”

“I must tell it,” Hester rejoined, “to show you why I hid the will, and
why he made it, and how big a lie _that woman_ told him.”

There was the most intense scorn in her voice every time she said “that
woman,” and Mrs. Walter Scott winced under it, but had no redress then;
her time for that would be by and by, she reflected, and assuming a
haughty indifference she was far from feeling she kept still while
Hester went on:

“The night she went away she undressed her baby herself; she wouldn’t
let me touch him, and all the time she did it she was whispering, and
cooing, and crying-like over him, and she kissed his face and arms, and
even his little feet, and said once aloud so I in the next room heard
her, ‘My poor darling, my pet, my precious one, will you ever hate your
mother?’”

“Hester, I cannot hear another word of that. Don’t you see you are
killing me?” Roger said, and this time the tears streamed in torrents
down his face, and his voice was choked with sobs.

Hester heeded him now, and there were tears on her wrinkled face as she
laid her hand pityingly on his golden brown hair and said, “Poor boy, I
won’t harrer you any more. I’ll stick to the pint, which is that your
mother, after you was asleep, and just afore I left her for the night,
came up to me in her pretty coaxin’ way, and told me what a comfort I
was to her, and said if anything ever was to happen that Roger should
have no mother, she would trust me to care for him before all the world,
and she made me promise that if anything should happen, I would never
desert Roger, but love him as if he was my own, and consider his
interest before that of any one else. I want you to mind them words,
‘consider his interest before any one else’ for that’s the upshot of the
whole thing. I promised to do it. I _swore_ I would do it, and I’ve kep’
my word. Next morning she was gone, and in a week or so was drownded
dead off Cape Hattrass, where I hope I’ll never go, for there’s allus a
hurricane there when there ain’t a breath no wheres else. I sot them
words down. I’ve read ’em every Sunday since as regular as my Bible, and
that fetches me to the mornin’ the Squire was found dead.

“That woman had been here a few months before, workin’ on his pride and
pisenen’ his mind, till he was drove out of his head, and you not here,
either, to prove it was a lie by your face, which, savin’ the eyes and
hair, is every inch an Irving. He acted crazy like, and mad them days,
as Aleck and me noticed, and he made another will, after that woman was
gone to Boston, and a spell after she went home for good. Aleck went up
in the mornin’ to make a fire here in this very room, and, sittin’ in
his chair, he found the Squire stark dead, and cold and stiff, and he
come for me who was the only other body up as good luck would have it,
and I not more’n half dressed. There was the will, lyin’ open on the
table, as if he had been readin’ it, and I read it, and Aleck, too;
’twas this same will, and my blood biled like a caldron kittle, and
Aleck fairly swore, and we said, what does it mean? There was a letter
on the table, too, a finished letter for Roger, and I read it, and found
the reason there. The Squire’s conscience had been a smitin’ him ever
since he did the rascally thing, and at last he’d made up his mind to
add a cod-cill, and he seemed to have a kind of forerunner that he
should never see Roger agin, and so he tried to explain the bedivelment
and smooth it over and all that, and signed himself, ‘Your affectionate
father.’”

“Did he, Hester? Did he own me at last?” Roger’s voice rang through the
room like a bell, its joyful tones thrilling even Mrs. Walter Scott, who
was growing greatly interested in Hester’s narrative, while Frank stood
perfectly spellbound, as if fearful of losing a word of the strange
story.

“Yes, I’m pretty sure he did,” Hester said, in reply to Roger’s
question. “Any way, he said he had forgiven your mother, and he would
leave _her_ letter with his, for you, in case he never see you, and I
gin you your mother’s, but kept his, because that would have told you
about the will, which I meant to hide. We both thought on’t to once,
Aleck and me, but I spoke first, bein’ a woman, and mentioned the
promise to consider Roger’s interest before any body’s else, and Jessie
seemed to be there with us, and haunted me, with the great blue eyes of
hern, till I made up my mind, and took the pesky thing and the letter,
and put ’em away safe up in the garret under the floor, where I’d had a
piece sawed out a spell before, so as to put pisen under there for the
rats. Then I moved an old settee over the place, and chairs and things,
so that it would look as if nobody had been there for ages. He must have
begun another letter first and blotched it, for the sheet lay there, and
I took it as a special Providence and kept it for Roger, as his father’s
last words to him. I knew t’other will was not destroyed, for I’d seen
it not long before, and I found it in his writing-desk, sealed up like a
drum, and left it there, and then she came with her lofty airs, and
queened it over us, as if she thought she was lord of all; but her
feathers drooped a bit when the will was read, and she thought the old
Harry was in it, and hinted, and snooped, and rummaged the very first
night, for I found her there, with her night gownd on, and more than
forty papers stickin’ in her hair, though why she thought ’twas there,
is more than I know; but she’s hunted the garret ever since by turns,
and I moved it twice, and then carried it back, and once she set
Magdalen at it, she or _he_, it’s little matter which.”

Magdalen was a sore point with Roger, and he shuddered, when her name
was mentioned, and thought of the letter, and wondered if she had it,
and would ever bring it to him.

“I was easy enough when that woman wasn’t here,” Hester continued, “and
I did think for a spell, she’d met with a change, she was so soft and so
velvety and so nice, that butter couldn’t melt in her mouth if it should
try. Maybe she’s forgot what she sprung from, but I knew the Browns,
root and branch; they allus was a peekin’, rummagin’ set, and her uncle
peeked into a money drawer once. She comes honestly by her snoopin’ that
found the will.”

Mrs. Walter Scott had borne a great deal of abuse from Hester, and borne
it quietly after her appeal to Frank, but now she could keep still no
longer, and she half rose from her chair, and exclaimed:

“Silence, old woman, or I will have you put out of the house, and I hold
Frank less than a man if he will hear me so abused. I never found the
will. It was Magdalen Lennox who found it, just where you told her it
was when you were crazy.”

“Magdalen found it, and brought it to _you_ instead of burnin’ it up!”
old Hester exclaimed, raising her hands in astonishment, and feeling her
blood grow hot against the poor girl. “Magdalen found it, after all he
has done for her! She’s a _viper_ then; and my curse be—”

She did not finish the sentence, for both Roger and Frank laid a hand
upon her mouth, and stopped the harsh words she would have spoken.

“You don’t know the circumstances. You shall not speak so of Magdalen,”
Roger said, while Frank, glad of a chance to prove that he _was_ a man
even if he had allowed his mother to be abused, said sternly: “Mrs.
Floyd, I have stood quietly by and heard my mother insulted, but when
you attack Magdalen I can keep still no longer. _She_ must not be
slandered in my presence. I hope she will be my wife.”

Hester gave a violent start, and a sudden gleam of intelligence came
into her eyes, as she replied, “Oh, I see now. She wasn’t content to
have you alone, and I don’t blame her for that. It would be a sickening
pill to swaller, you and that woman too but she must take advantage of
my crazy talk, and find the will which makes her lover a nabob. That’s
what I call gratitude to me and Roger, for all we’ve done for her. Much
good may her money and lover do her!”

Thus speaking, Hester rose from her chair and went toward Roger, who had
sat as rigid as a stone while she put into words what, as the shadow of
a thought, he had tried so hard to fight down.

“I’m done now,” she said. “I’ve told all I know about the will. I hid
it, Aleck and me, and I ain’t sorry neither, and I’m ready to go to jail
any minit the new lords see fit to send me.”

She started for the door, but came back again to Roger, and, laying her
hand on his hair, said soothingly, and in a very different tone from the
one she had assumed when addressing Frank or his mother: “Don’t take it
so hard, my boy. We’ll git along somehow. I ain’t so very old. There’s a
good deal of vim in me yet, and me and Aleck will work like dogs for
you. We’ll sell the tavern stand, and you shall have the hull it
fetches. Your father give us the money to buy it, you know.”

Roger could not fail to be touched by this generous unselfishness, and
he grasped the hard-wrinkled hand, and tried to smile, as he said:
“Thank you, Hester, I knew you would not desert me; but I shall not need
your little fortune. I can work for us all.”

It was growing dark by this time, and the bell had thrice sent forth its
summons to dinner. As Roger finished speaking, it rang again, and, glad
of an excuse to get away, old Hester said, “What do they mean by keepin’
that bell a dingin’ when they might know we’d something on hand of more
account than victuals and drink. I’ll go and see to’t myself.”

She hurried out into the hall, and Frank shut the door after her, and
then came back to the table, and began to urge upon Roger the acceptance
of a portion, at least, of the immense fortune, which a few hours before
he had believed to be all his own. But Roger stopped him short.

“Don’t, Frank,” he said. “I know you mean it now, and, perhaps, would
mean it always, but so long as that clause stands against me, I can take
nothing from the Irvings.”

He pointed to the words “the boy known as Roger Lennox Irving,” and
Frank rejoined, “It was a cruel thing for him to do.”

“Yes; but a far wickeder, crueller thing, to poison his mind with
slanders, until he did it,” Roger replied, as he turned to his sister,
and said, “Helen, I hold you guilty of my ruin, if what Hester has told
us be true; but I shall not reproach you; I will let your own conscience
do that.”

Mrs. Irving tried to say that Hester had spoken falsely, that she had
never worked upon the weak old man’s jealousy of his young wife; but she
could not quite utter so glaring a falsehood, knowing or believing, as
she did, that Magdalen had the letter, which might refute her lie. So
she assumed an air of lofty dignity, and answered back that it was
unnecessary to continue the conversation, which had been far more
personal than the questions involved required,—neither was it needful to
prolong the interview. The matter of the will was now between him and
Frank, and, with his permission, she would withdraw. Roger simply
inclined his head, to indicate his willingness for her to leave, and,
with a haughty bow, she swept from the room, signalling to Frank to
follow. But Frank did not heed her. He tarried for a few moments,
standing close to Roger, and mechanically toying with the pens and
pencils upon the table. He did not feel at all comfortable, nor like a
man who had suddenly become possessed of hundreds of thousands. He felt
rather like a thief, or, at best, an usurper of another’s rights, and
would have been glad at that moment had the will been lying in its box
under the floor, where it had lain so many years. Roger was the first to
speak.

“Go, Frank,” he said; “leave me alone for to-night. It is better so. I
know what you want to say, but it can do no good. Things are as they
are, and we cannot change them. I do not blame you. Don’t think I do. I
always liked you, Frank, always, since we were boys together, and I like
you still; but leave me now. I cannot bear any more.”

Roger’s voice trembled, and Frank could see through the fast gathering
darkness how white his face was and how he wiped the sweat-drops from
his forehead and lips, and wringing his hand nervously, he, too, went
away, and Roger was alone.




                              CHAPTER XXV.
                          MAGDALEN AND ROGER.


Magdalen had waited for Frank until she grew so nervous and restless
that she crept back to her couch, and, wrapping her shawl about her, lay
down among the pillows, still listening for Frank’s footsteps and
wondering that he did not come. She had made up her mind at last. After
days and nights of throbbing headache and fierce heart-pangs and bitter
tears, she had come to a decision. She would die so willingly for Roger,
if that would save Millbank for him. She would endure any pain or toil
or privation for him, but she could not _sin_ for him. She could not
swear to love and honor one, when her whole being was bound up in
another. She could not marry Frank, but she hoped she might persuade him
to let Roger keep Millbank, while he took the mill and the shoe-shop,
and the bonds and mortgages. He would surely listen to that proposition,
and she had sent for him to hear her decision, and then she meant next
day to take the will from its hiding place, and carry it to Roger, with
the letter she guarded so carefully. This was her decision, and she
waited for Frank until two hours were gone and the spring twilight began
to creep into the room, and still no one came near her. She heard the
dinner bell, and knew it was not answered, and then, as the minutes went
by, she became conscious of some unusual stir in the house among the
servants, and grasping the bell rope at last, she rang for Celine, and
asked where Mrs. Irving was.

“In the library with Mr. Irving and Mr. Frank and Hester. They are
talking very loud, and don’t pay any attention to the dinner bell,” was
Celine’s reply, and Magdalen felt as if she was going to faint with the
terrible apprehension of evil which swept over her.

“That will do. You may go,” she said to Celine; and then, the moment the
girl was gone, she rose from the couch, and knotting the heavy cord
around her dressing-gown, and adjusting her shawl, went stealthily out
into the hall, and stealing softly down the stairs, soon stood near the
door of the library.

It was closed, but Hester’s loud tones reached her as she talked of the
will, and with a shudder she turned away, whispering to herself:

“Too late! He’ll never believe me now.”

Then a thought of Aleck crossed her mind. She did not think he was in
the library; possibly he was in Hester’s room; at all events she would
go there, and wait for Hester’s return. An outside door stood open as
she passed through the rear hall which led to Hester’s room, and she
felt the chill night air blow on her, and shivered with the cold. But
she did not think of danger to herself from the exposure. She only
thought of Roger and what was transpiring in the library, and she
entered Hester’s room hurriedly, and uttered a cry of joy when she saw
Aleck there. He was not smoking now. He was sitting bowed over the
hearth, evidently wrapped in thought, and he gave a violent start when
Magdalen seized his arm, and asked him what had happened.

He heard her, though she spoke in a whisper, and turning his eyes slowly
toward her, replied:

“Somebody has found the will, and Roger is a beggar.”

“Oh, Aleck, I wish I was dead,” Magdalen exclaimed, and then sank down
upon the floor at the old man’s feet, sobbing in a piteous kind of way,
and trying to explain how she had found it first, and how she would give
her life if she never had done so.

In the midst of her story Hester came in, and Magdalen sprang up and
started toward her, but something in the expression of the old woman’s
face stopped her suddenly, and grasping the back of a chair, she stood
speechless, while Hester gave vent to a tirade of abuse, accusing her of
ruining Roger, taunting her with vile ingratitude, and bidding her take
herself and her lover back to where she came from, if that spot could be
found.

Perfectly wild with excitement Magdalen made no effort to explain, but
darted past Hester out into the hall, where the first person she
encountered was Frank, who chanced to be passing that way. She did not
try to avoid him; she was too faint and dizzy for that, and when asked
what was the matter, and where she was going, she answered:

“To my room. Oh, help me, please, or I shall never reach it.”

He wound his arm around her, and leaning heavily upon him she went
slowly down the hall, followed by Hester Floyd, who was watching her
movements. Not a word was spoken of the will until her chamber was
reached; then, as Frank parted from her, he said:

“I think you know that Roger has the will; but I did not give it to him.
I would have kept it from him, if possible, and it shall make no
difference, if I can help it.”

He held her hand a moment; then suddenly stooped and kissed her forehead
before she could prevent the act, and walked rapidly away, leaving her
flushed and indignant and half fainting, as she crept back to the couch.
No one came near her to light her lamp. No one remembered to bring her
food or drink. Everybody appeared to have forgotten and forsaken her,
but she preferred to be alone, and lay there in the darkness until
Celine came in to ask what she would have.

“Nothing, only light the lamp, please,” was her reply.

Then, after a moment, she asked:

“Are the family at dinner?”

“Yes; that is, Mrs. Irving and Mr. Frank. Mr. Irving is in the library
alone,” Celine said.

And then Magdalen sat up and asked the girl to gather up her hair
decently, and give it a brush or two, and bring her a clean collar, and
her other shawl.

Magdalen was going to the library to see Roger, who sat just where Frank
had left him, with his head bowed upon the fatal paper which had done
him so much harm. The blow had fallen so suddenly, and in so aggravating
a form, that it had stunned him in part, and he could not realize the
full extent of his calamity. One fact, however, stood out distinctly
before his mind, “Magdalen was lost forever!” Frank had said openly that
she was to be his wife! She had come to a decision. She would be the
mistress of Millbank, without a doubt. But he who had once hoped to make
her that himself, would be far away,—a poor, unknown man,—earning his
bread by the sweat of his brow. Roger did not care for that contingency.
He was willing to work; but he felt how much easier toil would be if it
was for Magdalen’s sake that he grew tired and worn. He was thinking of
all this when Magdalen came to his door, knocking so softly that he did
not hear at first; then, when the knock was repeated, he made no answer
to it, for he would rather be left alone. Ordinarily, Magdalen would
have turned back without venturing to enter; but she was desperate now.
She _must_ see Roger that night, and she resolutely turned the door-knob
and went into his presence.

Roger lifted up his head as she came in, and then sprang to his feet,
startled by her white face and the change in her appearance since he saw
her last. Then she had stood before him in the hall, winding the scarf
around his neck, her face glowing with health and happiness and girlish
beauty, and her eyes shining upon him like stars. They were very bright
now, unnaturally so he thought, and there was a glitter in them which
reminded him of the woman in the cars who had left her baby with him.

“Magdalen,” he said, as he went forward to meet her. “I did not think
you had been so sick as your looks indicate. Let me lead you to the
sofa.”

He laid his hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off and sank into a
chair close beside the one he had vacated.

“Don’t touch me yet, Roger, oh Roger,” she began, and Roger’s heart gave
a great leap, for never before had she called him thus to his face.
“Excuse me for coming here to-night. I know it is not maidenly, perhaps,
but I must see you, and tell you it was all a horrible mistake. I did
not know what I was doing. Hester talked so much about that loose board
in the garret and something hidden under it, that once, a week ago or
more, it seems a year to me, I went up to shut a window; my curiosity
led me to look under the floor, and I found it, Roger, and read it
through, and Frank came and surprised me, and then the secret was no
longer mine, and I—oh, Mr. Irving, I wanted to keep it from you,
till—till—I cannot explain the whole, and I don’t know at all how it
came into your hands. Can you forgive me, Roger? I could have burned it
at once or had it burned, but I dared not. Would you have liked me
better if I had destroyed it?”

She stopped speaking now, and held her hands toward Roger, who took them
in his own and pressed them with a fervor which brought the blood back
to her cheeks and made her very beautiful as she sat there before him.

“No, Magda,” he said, “I am glad you did not destroy it. I would rather
meet with poverty in its direct form than know that you had done that
thing; for it would have come to light some time, and I should have felt
that in more ways than one I had lost my little girl.”

He was speaking to her now as he had done when she was a child, and one
of his hands was smoothing her soft hair; but he was thinking of Frank,
and there was nothing of the lover in his caress, though it made
Magdalen’s blood throb and tingle to her finger tips, for she knew he
did not hate her as she had feared he might.

“The will should never have been hidden,” he said. “Hester did very
wrong. Do you know the particulars?”

“I know nothing except that I found it and you have it,” Magdalen
replied, and briefly as possible Roger told her the substance of
Hester’s story, smoothing over as much as possible Mrs. Irving’s guilt,
because she was to be Magdalen’s mother-in-law.

Before he spoke of the letter left by his father, Magdalen had taken it
from her pocket and held it in her hand. He knew it was the missing
letter, but did not offer to take it until his recital was ended, when
Magdalen held it to him and said, “This is the letter; it was in the
box, and I kept it to give to you myself in case you should ever know of
the will. I have not read it. You do _not_ believe I would read it,” she
added in some alarm, as she saw a questioning look in his face.

Whatever he might have suspected, he knew better now, and he made her
lie down upon the sofa, and arranged the cushions for her head, and
then, standing with his back to her, opened the letter, and read that
message from the dead. And as he read, he grew hard and bitter toward
the man who could be so easily swayed by a lying, deceitful woman. He
knew Magdalen was watching him, and probably wondering what was in the
letter, and knew, too, that she could not fully believe in his mother’s
innocence without more proof than his mere assertion. Of all the people
living he would rather Magdalen should think well of his mother, and
after a moment’s hesitancy he turned to her, and said:

“I want you to see this, Magda. I want you to know why I was
disinherited, and then you must hear my poor mother’s letter, and judge
yourself if she was guilty.”

He turned the key in the door, so as not to be interrupted, and then
came back to Magdalen, who had risen to a sitting posture, and who took
the letter from his hand while he adjusted the shade so that the glare
of the lamp would not shine directly in her eyes as she read it.




                             CHAPTER XXVI.
                        ‘SQUIRE IRVING’S LETTER.


It was dated the very night preceding the morning when Squire Irving had
been found dead by Aleck Floyd, and it commenced much like the one which
Roger had guarded so religiously as his father’s last message to him:

                                                     “MILLBANK, April —.

  “MY DEAR BOY, — For many days I have been haunted with a presentiment
  that I have not much longer to live. My heart is badly diseased, and I
  may drop away any minute, and as death begins to stare me in the face,
  my thoughts turn toward you, the boy whom I have been so proud of and
  loved so much. You don’t remember your mother, Roger, and you don’t
  know how I loved her, she was so beautiful and artless, and seemed so
  innocent, with her blue eyes and golden hair. Her home was among the
  New Hampshire hills, a quarter of a mile or so from the little rural
  town of Schodick, whose delightful scenery and pure mountain air years
  ago attracted visitors there during the summer months. Her father was
  poor and old and infirm, and his farm was mortgaged for more than it
  was worth, and the mortgage was about to be foreclosed, when, by
  chance, I became an inmate for a few weeks of the farm-house. I was
  stopping in Schodick, the hotel was full, and I boarded with Jessie’s
  father. He had taken boarders before,—one a young man, Arthur Grey, a
  fast, fashionable, fascinating man, who made love to Jessie, a mere
  child of sixteen. Her letter, which I enclose, will tell you the
  particulars of her acquaintance with him, so it is not needful that I
  go over with them. I knew nothing of Arthur Grey at the time I was at
  the farm-house, except that I sometimes heard him mentioned as a
  reckless, dashing young man. I was there during the months of August
  and September. I had an attack of heart disease, and Jessie nursed me
  through it, her soft hands and gentle ways and deep blue eyes weaving
  around me a spell I could not break. She was poor, but a lady every
  whit, and I loved her better than I had ever loved a human being
  before, and I wanted her for my wife. As I have said, her father was
  old and poor, and the farm was mortgaged to a remorseless creditor.
  They would be homeless when it was sold, and so I _bought_ Jessie, and
  her father kept his home. I know now that it was a great mistake; know
  why Jessie fainted when the plan was first proposed to her, but I did
  not suspect it then. Her father said she was in the habit of fainting,
  and tried to make light of it. He was anxious for the match, and shut
  his eyes to his daughter’s aversion to it.

  “I brought her to Millbank in December, and within the year you were
  born. I heard nothing of Arthur Grey. I only knew that Jessie was not
  happy; satins and pearls and diamonds could not drive that sad, hungry
  look from her eyes, and I took her for a change to Saratoga, and there
  she met the villain again, and as the result she left Millbank to go
  with him to Europe. In a few days she was drowned, and her letter
  written on the ‘Sea Gull’ was sent to me by that accursed man who,
  when she tried to escape him, followed her to the ship bound for
  Charleston. I believe that part, and a doubt of your legitimacy never
  entered my heart until Walter’s wife put it there. I had made my will,
  and given nearly all to you, when Helen, who was here a few months
  ago, began one day to talk of Jessie, very kindly, as I remember, and
  seemed trying to find excuses for what she called her sin, and then
  said she was so glad that I had always been kind to the poor innocent
  boy who was not to blame for his mother’s error. I came gradually to
  understand her, though she said but little which could be repeated,
  but I knew that she doubted your legitimacy, and she gave me reason to
  doubt it too, by hinting that Arthur Grey had been seen in Belvidere
  more than once after Jessie’s marriage. Her husband, Walter, was her
  informant; but she had promised secrecy, as he wished to spare me, and
  so she could not be explicit. But I had heard enough to drive me mad
  with jealousy and rage, and I made another will, and gave you little
  more than the Morton farm, which, when Jessie’s father died, as he did
  the day when you were born, I bought to please your mother. I was wild
  with anger when I made that will, and my love for you has ever since
  kept tugging at my heart, and has prevented me from destroying the
  first will, as I twice made up my mind to do. To-day I have read your
  mother’s letter again, and I have forgiven Jessie at last, though
  Helen’s insinuations still rankle in my mind. But I have repented of
  leaving you so little, and have sent for young Schofield to change my
  last will, and make you equal with Frank.

  “Perhaps I may never see you again, for something about my heart warns
  me that my days are numbered, and what I do for you must be done
  quickly. Heaven forgive me if I wronged your mother, and forgive me
  doubly, trebly, if in wronging her I have dealt cruelly, unnaturally
  by you, my darling, my pride, my boy, whom I love so much in spite of
  everything; for I do, Roger, I certainly do, and I feel even now that
  if you were here beside me, the sight of your dear face would tempt me
  to burn the later will and reacknowledge the first.

  “Heaven bless you, Roger. Heaven give you every possible good which
  you may crave, and if in the course of your life there is one thing
  more than another which you desire, I pray Heaven to give it to you. I
  wish Schofield was here now. There is a dreadful feeling in my head, a
  cold, prickling sensation in my arms, and I must stop, while I have
  power to sign myself,

                                “Yours lovingly and affectionately,
                                                    “WILLIAM H. IRVING.”

This was the letter, and the old man must have been battling with death
as he wrote it, and with the tracing of Roger’s name the pen must have
dropped from his nerveless fingers, and his spirit taken its flight to
the world where poor, wronged Jessie had gone before him. The fact that
she was innocent did not prevent her child from receiving the punishment
of her seeming guilt, and at first every word of his father’s letter had
been like so many stabs, making his pain harder than ever to bear.
Magdalen comprehended it in full, and pitied him now more than she had
before.

“Oh, I am so sorry for you, Mr. Irving; sorrier than I was about the
will,” she said, moving a little nearer to him.

He looked quickly at her, and guessing of what he was thinking, she
rejoined:

“Don’t imagine for a moment that I distrust your mother. I know she was
innocent and I hate the woman who breathed the vile slander against
her.”

“Hush, Magda, that woman is Frank’s mother,” Roger said, gently, and
Magdalen replied:

“I know she is, and your sister-in-law. I did not think of the
relationship when I spoke, or suppose you would care.”

She either did not or _would_ not understand him, and she went on to
speak of Jessie and the man who had been her ruin.

“Grey,” she repeated, “Arthur Grey! It surely cannot be Alice’s father?”

Roger did not know. He had never thought of that. “I never saw him,” he
said, “and never wish to see him or his. I could not treat him civilly.
There is more about him here in mother’s letter. She loved him with a
woman’s strange infatuation, and her love gives a soft coloring to what
she has written. I have never shown it to a human being, but I want you
to read it, Magda, or rather let me read it to you.”

He was not angry with her, Magdalen knew, and she felt as if a great
burden had been lifted from her as she listened to the letter written
thirty years before.




                             CHAPTER XXVII.
                            JESSIE’S LETTER.


It was dated on board the “Sea Gull” and began as follows:

  “My husband:—It would be mockery for me to put the word _dear_ before
  your honored name. You would not believe I meant it when I have sinned
  against you so deeply and wounded your pride so sorely. But oh, if you
  knew all which led me to what I am, you would pity me even if you
  condemned, for you were always kind, too kind by far to a wicked girl
  like me. But I am not so bad as you imagine. I have left you, I know,
  and left my darling baby, and _he_ is here with me, but by no consent
  of mine. I am not going to Europe. I am going to Charleston, where
  Lucy is, and shall mail this letter from there. Every word I write
  will be true, and you must believe it and teach Roger to believe it,
  too, for I have not sinned as you suppose, and Roger need not blush
  for his mother except that she deserted him. I am writing this quite
  as much for him as for you, for I want him to know something of his
  mother as she was years ago, when she lived among the Schodick hills,
  in the dear old house which I have dreamed about so often, and which
  even here on the sea comes up so vividly before me, with the orchard
  where the mountain shadows fell so early in the afternoon, and the
  meadows where the buttercups and clover blossoms grew. Oh, I grow
  sick, and faint, and dizzy when I think of those happy days and
  contrast myself as I was then with myself as I am now. I was so happy,
  though I knew what poverty meant; but that did not matter. Children,
  if surrounded by loving friends, do not mind being poor, and I did not
  mind it either until I grew old enough to see how it troubled my
  father. My mother, as you know, died before I could remember her, and
  my aunt Mary, my father’s only sister, and cousin Lucy’s mother, took
  her place and cared for me.

  “The summer before you came to us, I met _Arthur Grey_. He was among
  the visitors who boarded at the hotel. He was said to be very rich,
  very aristocratic, very fastidious. You never saw him, and cannot
  understand the strange fascination there was about him, or how his
  manner, when he chose to be gracious, was calculated to win upon a
  simple girl like me. I met him, and, ere I was aware of it, he taught
  me how to love him. He became an inmate of our house at last, and thus
  our growing fondness for each other was hidden from the public, which
  would have said that I was no match for him. I _know_ that he loved
  me. I never doubted that for a moment. Deception can assume many
  garbs, but never the guise he wore when he won my girlish love. He
  asked me to be his wife one autumn night, when the Indian summer haze
  was on the hills, and the mountain tops were gorgeous with scarlet and
  gold. I had never dreamed that a human being could be as happy as I
  was when, with him at my side, I walked back across the fields to our
  home. The very air around seemed full of the ecstatic joy I felt as I
  thought of a life spent with _him_. He wished me to keep our betrothal
  a secret for a time, he said, as he did not care to have his mother
  and sisters know of it just then. They were at the hotel for a few
  weeks, and I used to see them at church; and their cold, haughty
  manner impressed me disagreeably, just as it did every one who came in
  contact with them. I should not live with them, Arthur said. I should
  have a home of my own on the Hudson. He had just bought a residence
  there, and he described it to me until I knew every tree, and shrub,
  and winding walk upon the place.

  “Then he went away, and the dreary winter came, and his letters, so
  frequent at first, began to come irregularly, but were always loving
  and tender, and full of excuses for the long delay. Once I heard of
  fierce opposition from his mother and sister, and a desire on their
  part to persuade him into a more brilliant marriage. But I trusted him
  fully until the spring, when after a longer interval of silence than
  usual there came a letter from his mother, who wrote at her son’s
  request, as he was ill and unable to write himself. I was still very
  dear to him, she said, but considering all things he thought it better
  for us both that the engagement should be broken. I had been brought
  up so differently, that he did not believe I would ever be happy in
  the society in which he moved, and it was really doing me a kindness
  to leave me where I was; still, if I insisted, he was in honor bound
  to adhere to his promise, and should do so.

  “I pass over the pain, and bitter disappointment, and dreadful days,
  when, in the shadow of the woods where I had walked so often with him,
  I laid my face in the grass and wished that I could die. I did not
  write him a word, but I sent him back his letters, and the ring, and
  every memento of those blissful hours; and the few who knew of my
  engagement guessed that it was broken, and said it had ended as they
  expected.

  “Then _you_ came, just when my heart was so sore, and you were kind to
  father, and sought me of him for your wife, and he begged me to
  consider your proposal, and save him his home for his old age. Then I
  went again into the shadow of those woods, and crept away behind a
  rock, under a luxuriant pine, and prayed that I might know what was
  right for me to do. My father found me there one day and took me home,
  and said I need not marry you. He would rather end his days in the
  poor-house than see me so distressed. But the sight of his dear old
  face growing so white, and thin, as the time for the foreclosure drew
  near, was more than I could bear, and it mattered little what I did in
  the future; so I went to you and said ‘I will be your wife, and do the
  best I can; but you must be patient with me. I am only a little girl.’

  “I ought to have told you of Arthur, but I did not, and so trouble
  came of it. We were married in the morning, and went to Boston, and
  then back for a few days to Schodick, where there was a letter for
  _me_, from _Arthur_. It was all a terrible deception: he had had a
  long, long illness, and his mother,—a cruel, artful woman,—took
  advantage of it, and wrote me that cruel letter. Then, when my package
  reached her, and she found there was no word of protest in it, she
  gave it to him, and worked upon him in his weak condition until he
  believed me false, and the excitement brought on a relapse which
  lasted longer and was more dangerous than his first illness had been.
  As soon as he was able to hold his pen, he wrote to me again; but his
  mother managed to withhold the letter, and so the time went on until,
  by chance, he discovered the deception, but it was too late. _I was
  your wife._ I am your wife now, and so I must not tell you of that
  terrible hour of anguish in my room at home, when cousin Lucy, who was
  then at our house, found me fainting on the floor with the letter in
  my hand. I told _her_ everything, for we were to each other as
  sisters; but with that exception, no living being has ever heard my
  story. I asked her to send him a paper containing the notice of my
  marriage, and that was all the answer I returned to his letter.

  “Then you took me to Millbank, and I tried to do my duty, even though
  my heart was broken. After Roger came, I was happier, and I
  appreciated all your kindness, and the pain was not so hard to bear,
  till we went to Saratoga that summer, where I met _him_ again.

  “He loved me still, and we talked it over together, sometimes when you
  were sleeping after dinner, and nights when you were playing
  billiards. There is so much of that kind of thing at Saratoga that
  one’s sense of right and wrong is easily blunted there, and I was so
  young; still this is no excuse. I ought not to have listened for a
  moment, especially after he began to talk of _Italy_ and a cottage by
  the sea, where no one would know us. I was his in the sight of Heaven,
  he said. I was committing sin by living with you. I was more his wife
  than yours, and he made me believe that if once I left you, a divorce
  could easily be obtained, and then there would be nothing in the way
  of our marriage. I caught at that idea and listened to it, and from
  that moment my fate was sealed. But I never contemplated anything but
  marriage with him, when at last I consented to leave you. I wanted to
  take Roger, and went on my knees to him, begging that I might have my
  baby, but he would not consent. A child would be in the way, he said,
  and I must choose between him and my boy. His influence over me was so
  great that I would have walked into the fire with him then, had he
  willed it so.

  “I left Millbank at night, intending to meet Arthur in New York, and
  go at once to the steamer bound for Liverpool, but on the way thoughts
  of my baby sleeping in his crib, with that smile on his lips when I
  kissed him last, came to save me, and at New Haven I left the train
  and took the boat for New York, and went to another hotel than the one
  where he was waiting for me. I scarcely knew what I meant to do,
  except to avoid him, until, as I sat waiting for a room, I heard some
  people talking of the ‘Sea Gull,’ which was to leave the next day for
  Charleston. Then, I said, ‘Heaven has opened for me that way of
  escape. I dare not go back to Millbank. My husband would not receive
  me now. Lucy is in Charleston. She knows my story. I will go to her,’
  and so yesterday, when the ‘Sea Gull’ dropped down the harbor, I was
  in it, and _he_ was there too; but I did not know it till we had been
  hours upon the sea, and it was too late for me to go back. He had
  wondered that I did not come according to appointment, and was walking
  down Broadway when he saw me leave the hotel, and called a carriage at
  once and followed me to the boat, guessing that it was my intention to
  avoid him. I have told him of my resolve, and when Charleston is
  reached, we shall part forever.

  “This is the truth, my husband, and I want you to believe it. I do not
  ask you to take me back. You are too proud for that, and I know it can
  never be, but I want you to think as kindly of me as you can, and when
  you feel that you have forgiven me, show this letter to Roger, if he
  is old enough to understand it. Tell him to forgive me, and give him
  this lock of his mother’s hair. Heaven bless and keep my little boy,
  and grant that he may be a comfort to you and grow up a good and noble
  man. Perhaps I may see him sometime. If not, my blessing be with him
  always.”

“This is all of mother’s letter, but there is a postscript from _him_.
Shall I read that, too?” Roger asked, and Magdalen said yes; and then,
as he held the letter near to her, she saw the bold, masculine
handwriting of Arthur Grey, who had written:

  “SQUIRE IRVING—DEAR SIR—It becomes my painful duty to inform you that
  not long after the enclosed letter from your wife was finished, a fire
  broke out and spread so fast that all hope of escape except by the
  life-boats was cut off. Your wife felt from the first a presentiment
  that she should be drowned, and brought the letter to me, asking that
  if I escaped, and she did not, I would forward it at once to Millbank.
  I took the letter and I tried to save her, when the sea ingulfed us
  both, but a tremendous wave carried her beyond my reach, and I saw her
  golden hair rise once above the water and then go down forever. I,
  with a few others, was saved as by a miracle,—picked up by a vessel
  bound for New York, which place I reached yesterday. I have read
  Jessie’s letter. She told me to do so, and to add my testimony to the
  truth of what she had written. Even if it were not true, it would be
  wrong to refuse the request of one so lovely and dear to me as Jessie
  was, and I accordingly do as she bade me, and say to you that she has
  written you the truth.

                          “I have the honor, sir, to be
                                      “Your obedient servant,
                                                          “ARTHUR GREY.”

Not a word of excuse for himself, or regret for the part he had had in
effecting poor Jessie’s death. He could scarcely have written less than
he did, and the cold, indifferent wording of his message struck Magdalen
just as it did Roger. She had wept over poor Jessie’s story, and pitied
the young, desolate creature who had been so cruelly wronged. And she
had pitied Arthur Grey at first, and her heart had gone out after him
with a strange, inexplicable feeling of sympathy. But when it came to
Saratoga and Italy, and all the seductive arts he must have used to
tempt Jessie from her husband and child, and when she heard the message
he had sent to the outraged husband, her blood boiled with indignation,
and she felt that if she were to see him then, she must curse him to his
face. While Roger had been reading of him, her mind had, for some cause,
gone back to that Saturday afternoon, in the graveyard, when she met the
handsome stranger whose courteous manners had so fascinated her, and who
had been so interested in everything pertaining to the Irving family.
Suddenly it came to her that _this_ was _Arthur Grey_, and, with a
start, she exclaimed: “I have seen that man,—I know I have. I saw him at
your father’s grave years and years ago.”

Roger looked inquiringly at her as she explained the circumstances of
her interview with the stranger, telling of his questions with regard to
Mrs. Irving and his apparent interest in her, and when she had finished
her story, he said, “Is it your impression that he was ever in Belvidere
before?”

“I know he never was,” Magdalen replied. “He told me so himself, and I
should have known it without his telling, he seemed so much a stranger
to everything and everybody.”

Roger knew that every word his sister had breathed against his mother
was a lie, but Magdalen’s involuntary testimony helped to comfort and
reassure him as nothing else had done. The clause which read “the boy
known as Roger Lennox Irving” did not especially trouble him now, though
he could not then forgive the father who had wronged him so, and when he
thought of him there came back to his face the same sad, sorry look it
had worn when Magdalen first came in, and which while talking to her had
gradually passed away. She detected it at once, and connecting it with
the will said to him again, “Oh, Mr. Irving, it would have been better
if I had never come here. I have only brought sorrow and ruin to you.”

“No, Magda,” Roger replied, “it would not have been better if you had
never come here. You have made me very happy, so happy that—” he could
not get any further for something in his throat which prevented his
utterance.

She _had_ brought him sorrow, and yet he would not for the world have
failed of knowing how sweet it was to love her even if she could not be
his. If he could have kept her and taken her with him to his home among
the hills, he felt that he would have parted willingly with his fortune
and beautiful Millbank. But that could not be. She belonged to Frank;
everything was Frank’s, and for an instant the whole extent of his
calamity swept over him so painfully that he succumbed to it, and laying
his face upon the table sobbed just as piteously as he had done in the
first moment of surprise and pain when he heard that both fortune and
name were gone. Magdalen could not understand all the causes of his
distress. She did not dream that every sob and every tear wrung from the
strong man was given more to her than to the fortune lost, and she tried
to comfort him as best she could, thinking once to tell him how
willingly she would toil and slave to make his new home attractive,
deeming no self-denial too great if by its means he could be made
happier and more comfortable. But she did not dare do this until she
knew whether she was wanted in that home among the Schodick hills where
he said he was going. Oh, how she wished he would give some hint that he
expected her to go with him; but he did not, and he kept his face hidden
so long that she came at last to his side, and laid her hand on his
shoulder and bent over him with words of sympathy. Then, as he did not
look up, she knelt beside him, and her hand found its way to his, and
she called him Roger again, and begged him not to feel so badly.

“You will drive me mad with remorse,” she said, “for I know I have done
it all. Don’t, Roger, it breaks my heart to see you so distressed. What
can I do to prove how sorry I am? Tell me and I will do it, even to the
taking of my life.”

It did not seem possible that this girl pleading thus with him could be
another’s betrothed, and for a moment Roger lost all self-control, and
forgetting Frank and his rights snatched her to his arms and pressing
her to his bosom rained kiss after kiss upon her forehead and lips,
saying to her, “My darling, my darling, you have been a blessing and a
comfort to me all your life, but there’s nothing you can do for me now.
Once I hoped—oh, Magda, my little girl, that time is far in the past; I
hope for nothing now. I am not angry with you. I could not be so if I
would. I bless you for all you have been to me. I hope you will be happy
here at Millbank when I am gone; and now go, my darling. You are
shivering with cold and the room is very damp. God bless you, Magda.”

He led her out into the hall, then closed the door upon her, and went
back again to his solitude and his sorrow, while Magdalen, bewildered
and frightened and wearied out, found her way as best she could to her
own room, where a few moments later Celine found her fainting upon the
floor.




                             CHAPTER XXVIII
                        THE WORLD AND THE WILL.


The world, or that portion of it represented by Belvidere, did not
receive it kindly, and when the new heir appeared in the street on the
day succeeding the events narrated in the last chapter, he was conscious
of a certain air of constraint and stiffness about those whom he met,
and an evident attempt to avoid him. It was known all over town by that
time, for Roger had made no secret of the matter, and an hour after
Magdalen left him, he had sent for all the servants, and told them
briefly of his changed condition. He entered into no particulars; he
merely said:

“My father saw fit to make a later will than the one found at the time
of his death. In it he gave Millbank and all its appurtenances to Frank,
as the child of his eldest son, my brother Walter. This later will, of
whose existence I did not know, has recently been found, and by virtue
of it everything goes to Frank, who is the rightful owner of Millbank,
or will be when the will is proved. You have served me faithfully, some
of you for years, and I shall never forget your unvarying kindness and
fidelity. The amount of wages due each of you I shall venture to pay
from money kept for that purpose. My nephew will allow me to do that,
and then, so far as I am concerned, you are at liberty to seek new
situations. Our relations as employer and servant are at an end. I do
not wish you to talk about it, or to express your sympathy for me. I
could not bear it now, so please do not trouble me.”

This last he said because of the murmur of discontent and surprise and
dissatisfaction which ran through the room when those assembled first
learned that they must part with their master, whom they had loved and
respected so long.

“We will not leave you, Mr. Irving. We will go where you go. We will
work for you for less wages than for anybody else,” was what the house
servants said to him, and what many of his factory and shop hands said
when next day he met them in front of the huge mill where they were
congregated.

He had told his servants not to talk of his affairs, but they did not
heed him; while Hester Floyd, whom no one could control, discussed the
matter freely, so that by noon the little town was rife with rumors of
every kind, and knots of people gathered at the corners of the street,
while in front of the cotton mill a vast concourse had assembled even
before the bell rang for twelve, and instead of going home to the dinner
they would hardly have found prepared that day, they stood talking of
the strange news, which had come to them in so many different forms.
That there had been some undue influence brought to bear upon Squire
Irving, they knew; and that the mother of the new heir was the guilty
party who had slandered the Squire’s unfortunate young wife, they also
knew; and many and loud were their imprecations against the woman whose
proud haughty bearing had never impressed them favorably, and whom they
now disliked with all the unrestrained bitterness common to their class.

All had heard of Jessie Irving, and a few remembered her as she was when
she first came among them, in her bright, girlish beauty, with those
great, sad blue eyes, which always smiled kindly upon her husband’s
employes when she met with them. As people will do, they had repeated
her story many times, and the mothers had blamed her sorely for
deserting her child, while a few envious ones, when speaking of “the
grand doings at Millbank,” had hinted that the original stock was “no
better than it should be,” and that the Irving name was stained like
many others.

But this was all forgotten now. Jessie Irving was declared a saint, and
an angel, and a martyr, while nothing was too severe to say against the
woman who had maligned her, and influenced the jealous old Squire to do
a thing which would deprive the working classes in Belvidere of the
kindest, most considerate, and liberal of masters. The factory hands
could _not_ work after they heard of it, and one by one they stole out
upon the green in front of the large manufactory, where they were joined
by other hands from the shoe-shop, until the square was full of excited
men and boys, and girls, the murmur of their voices swelling louder and
louder as, encouraged by each other, they grew more and more indignant
toward the “new lords,” as they called Frank and his mother, and more
enthusiastic in their praises of Roger.

One of their number proposed sending for him to come himself and tell
them if what they had heard was true, and to hear their protest against
it; and three of the more prominent men were deputed to wait upon him.

There was no mistaking the genuine concern, and sympathy, and sorrow
written on their faces, when Roger went out to meet them, and the sight
of them nearly unmanned him again. He had been very calm all the
morning; had breakfasted with his sister and Frank, as usual; had said
to the latter that it would be well enough to send for Lawyer Schofield,
who was not now a resident of Belvidere, but was practising in
Springfield; and had tried to quiet old Hester, who was giving loose
rein to her tongue, and holding herself loftily above the “pertenders,”
as she called them. He had also remembered Magdalen, and sent her a
bouquet of flowers by Celine, who represented her as feverish and
nervous, and too tired to leave her bed. Roger did not gather from
Celine’s report that she was very ill, only tired and worn; so he felt
no particular anxiety for her, and devoted himself to standing between
and keeping within bounds the other members of his household, and in so
doing felt a tolerable degree of quiet, until the men came up from the
mill, when the sight of their faces, so full of pity, and the warm grasp
of their friendly hands, brought a sudden rush of tears to his eyes, and
his chin quivered a little when he first spoke to them.

“We’ve heard about it, Mr. Irving,” the speaker said, “and we don’t like
it, any of us, and we hope it is not true, and we are sent by the others
who are down on the green, and who want you to come and tell us if it is
true, and what we are to do.”

Mrs. Walter Scott, sitting by her chamber window, saw the three men walk
down the avenue, with Roger in their midst, and saw, too, in the
distance the crowd congregated in front of the mill, and felt for a
moment a thrill of fear as she began to realize, more and more, what
taking Millbank from Roger meant. She would have felt still more uneasy
could she have seen the faces of the crowd, and their eager rush for
Roger when he appeared.

The women and the young girls were the first to pounce upon him, and
were the most voluble in their words of sorrow, and surprise, and
indignation, while the men and boys were not far behind.

Bewildered and too much overcome at first to speak, Roger stood like
some father in the midst of his children, from whom he is soon to be
separated. He had been absent from them for years, but his kindness and
generosity had reached them across the sea. They had lighter tasks, and
higher wages, and more holidays, and forbearance, and patience than any
class of workmen for miles and miles around, and they knew it all came
from Roger’s generosity, and the exceeding great kindness of his heart,
and they were grateful for it.

A few, of course, had taken advantage of his goodness, and loitered, and
idled, and complained of their hard lot, and talked as if to work at all
were a great favor to their employer. But the majority had appreciated
him to the full, and given him back measure for measure, working for his
interest, and serving him so faithfully, that few manufactories were as
prosperous or yielded so large an income as those in Belvidere. And now
these workmen stood around their late master, with their sad faces
upturned, listening for what he had to say.

“It is all true,” he said. “There was another will, made by my father a
few months before he died.”

Here a few groans for Squire Irving were heard from a knot of boys by
the fence, but these were soon hushed, and Roger went on:

“This will Hester Floyd saw fit to hide, because she thought it unjust,
and so for years——”

He did not get any further, for his voice was lost in the deafening
cheers which went up from the groaning boys for _Hester Floyd_, whom
they designated as a _trump_ and a _brick_, hurrahing with all their
might, “Good for her. Three cheers and a tiger for Hester Floyd.”

The cheers and the tiger were given, and then the boys settled again
into quiet, while Roger tried to frame some reasonable excuse for what
his father had done. But they would not listen to that, and those
nearest him said, “It’s no use, Mr. Irving. We’ve heard the reason and
we know whom to thank for this calamity, and there’s not one of us but
hates her for it. We can never respect Mrs. Walter Irving.”

The multitude caught the sound of that name, and the boys by the fence
set up a series of most unearthly groans, which were in no wise
diminished when they saw coming toward them _Frank_, the heir, and their
new master, if they chose to serve him. Frank’s face was very pale, and
there was something like fear and dread upon it when he met the angry
glances of the crowd, and heard the groans and hisses with which they
greeted him. Making his way to Roger’s side, he whispered, “Speak to
them for me. They will listen to you when they would only insult me.
Tell them I am not in fault.”

So it was Roger who spoke for Frank, explaining matters away, and trying
to make things as smooth as possible.

“My nephew is not to blame,” he said. “He had nothing to do with the
will. He knew nothing of it, and was as much surprised as you are when
he found there was one.”

“Yes, and would have burned it, too; tell them that,” Frank said,
anxious to conciliate a people whose enmity he dreaded.

Roger repeated the words, which were received with incredulity.

“Stuff!” “Bosh!” “Can’t make me swaller that!” “Don’t believe it!” and
such like expressions ran through the crowd, till, roused to a pitch of
wild excitement, Frank sprang upon a box and harangued the multitude
eloquently in his own defence.

“It _is_ true,” he said. “I did try to burn the will, and would have
done so if it had not been struck from my hand. I held a lighted match
to it, and Roger will tell you that a part of it is yellow now with the
smoke and flame.”

“Yellow with time more like,” a woman said, while a son of Erin called
out, “Good for you, Misther Franklin, to defind yourself, but plase tell
us who struck the match from yer hand.”

“An’ sure who would be afther doin’ the mane thing but his mither, bad
luck to her,” interrupted another of Ireland’s sons, and Frank rejoined,
“It was not my mother. Roger will tell you that it was some one whom you
love and respect, and who was just as desirous that the will should be
destroyed as I was, but who did not think it right and dared not do it.
I am sorrier about it than you are, and I’ve tried to make Roger keep
Millbank, and he refuses. I can no more help being the heir than I could
help being born, and I do not want to be blamed. I want your good will
more than anything else. I have not Roger’s experience, nor Roger’s
sense; but I’ll do the very best I can, and you must stand by me and
help me to be what Roger was.”

Frank was growing very eloquent, and his pale, boyish face lighted up
and his eyes kindled as he went on telling what he meant to be if they
would only help him instead of hindering and disliking him, until the
tide began to set in his favor and the boys by the fence whispered to
each other:

“Let’s go in for white hair, jest for fun if nothing more,—he talks
reasonable, and maybe he’ll give us half holidays when the circus is in
town. Mr. Irving never done that.”

“Yes, but he let us go to see the _hanimals_, and gin Bob ’Untley a
ticket,” said a red-faced English youth.

But the circus clique carried the day, and there rose from that part of
the green a loud huzza for “Mr. Franklin Irving,” while the faces of the
older ones cleared up a little, and a few spoke pleasantly to Frank, who
felt that he was not quite so obnoxious to the people as he had been.
But they kept aloof from him, and followed their late master even to the
gates of Millbank, assuring him of their readiness to go with him and
work for him at lower rates than they were working now. And Roger, as he
walked slowly up the avenue, felt that it was worth some suffering and
trial to know that he stood so high in the estimation of those who had
been employed by him so long.

All over town the same spirit prevailed, pervading the higher circles,
and causing Mrs. Johnson to telegraph to Springfield for Lawyer
Schofield, who she hoped might do something, though she did not know
what. He came on the next train, and went at once to Millbank and was
closeted with Roger for an hour and looked the ground over and talked
with Hester Floyd and screamed to Aleck through an ear trumpet and said
a few words to Frank and bowed coldly to Mrs. Walter Scott, and then
went back to the group of ladies assembled in Mrs. Johnson’s parlor, and
told them there was no hope. The will was perfectly good. Frank was the
rightful heir, and Roger too proud to receive anything from him more
than he had received. And then his auditors all talked together, and
abused Mrs. Walter Scott and pitied Roger and spoke slightingly of
Frank, and wondered if there was any truth in the rumor that Magdalen
was to marry him. They had heard so, and the rumor incensed them against
her, and when Lawyer Schofield said he thought it very possible, they
pounced upon the luckless girl and in a very polite way tore her into
shreds, without, however, saying a word which was not strictly lady-like
and capable of a good as well as of a bad construction.




                             CHAPTER XXIX.
                              POOR MAGDA.


Nobody paid any attention to her on the morning following her visit to
the library, except Celine, and Frank and Roger. The latter had sent her
a bouquet which he arranged himself, while Frank, remembering that this
was the day when she was to give him her answer, had asked if she would
see him, and Celine, through whom the message was sent, had brought him
word that “Miss Lennox was too sick to see any one.” Then Frank had
begged his mother to go to her and ascertain if she were seriously ill,
and that lady had said she would, but afterward found it convenient to
be so busy with other matters, that nursing a sick girl who was nothing
to her now except a person whom she must if possible remove from her
son’s way, was out of the question. She did not care to see Magdalen
just then, and she left her to the care of Celine, who carried her toast
and tea about nine o’clock and urged her to eat it. But Magdalen was not
hungry, and bade the girl leave her alone, as she wanted rest more than
anything. At eleven Celine went to her again and found her sleeping
heavily, with a flush on her cheeks, and her head occasionally moving
uneasily on the pillow. Celine was not accustomed to sickness, and if
her young mistress was sleeping she believed she was doing well, and
stole softly from the room. At one she went again, finding Magdalen
still asleep, but her whole face was crimson, and she was talking to
herself and rolling her head from side to side, as if suffering great
pain. Then Celine went for Mrs. Walter Scott, who, alarmed by the girl’s
representations, went at once to Magdalen. She was awake now, but she
did not recognize any one, and kept moaning and talking about her head,
which she said was between two planks in the garret, where she could not
get it out. Mrs. Walter Scott saw she was very sick, and though she did
not pet or caress or kiss the feverish, restless girl, she did her best
to soothe and quiet her, and sent Celine for the family physician, who
came and went before either Roger or Frank knew that danger threatened
Magdalen.

“Typhoid fever, aggravated by excitement and some sudden exposure to
cold,” was the doctor’s verdict. “Typhoid in its most violent form,
judging from present symptoms;” and then Mrs. Walter Scott, who affected
a mortal terror of that kind of fever, declared her unwillingness to
risk her life by staying in the sick-room, and sent for Hester Floyd.

The old woman’s animosity against Magdalen had cooled a little, and when
she heard how sick she was she started for her at once.

“She nussed me through a fever, and I’d be a heathen to neglect her now,
let her be ever so big a piece of trumpery,” she said to herself as she
went along the passage to Magdalen’s room.

But when she reached it, and saw the moaning, tossing girl, and heard
her sad complaints of her head wedged in between the boards, and her
pleadings for some one to get it out, her old love for the child came
surging back, and she bent over her lovingly, saying to her softly,
“Poor Maggie, old Hester will get your head out, she will, she
will—there—there—isn’t it a bit easier now?” and she rubbed and bathed
the burning head, and gave the cooling drink, and administered the
little globules in which she had no faith, giving eight instead of six
and sometimes even ten. And still there was no change for the better in
Magdalen, who talked of the will, which she was trying to burn, and then
of Roger, but not a word of Frank, who was beside her now, his face pale
with fear and anxiety as he saw the great change in Magdalen, and how
fast her fever increased.

Roger was the last to hear of it, for he had been busy in the library
ever since Lawyer Schofield’s departure, and did not know what was
passing in the house until Hester went to him, and said:

“She thinks her head is jammed in between them boards in the garret
floor, and nobody but you can pry it out. I guess you had better see
her. Mr. Frank is there, of course, as he or’ to be after what I seen in
the hall yesterday.”

“What did you see?” Roger asked, and Hester replied:

“I found her in my room when I went from here and I spoke my mind
freely, I s’pose, about her snoopin’ after the will when you had done so
much for her, and she gave a scart kind of screech, and ran out into the
hall, where Mr. Frank met her, and put his arm round her and led her to
her own door, and kissed her as he had a right to if she’s to be his
wife.”

Roger made no reply to this, but tried to exonerate Magdalen from all
blame with regard to the will, telling what he knew about her finding
it, and begging Hester to lay aside her prejudice, and care for Magdalen
as she would have done six weeks ago.

And Hester promised, and called herself a foolish old woman for having
distrusted the girl, and then went back to the sick-room, leaving Roger
to follow her at his leisure. Something in Magdalen’s manner the
previous night had led him to hope that possibly she was not irrevocably
bound to Frank; there might be some mistake, and the future was not half
so dreary when he thought of her sharing it with him. But Hester’s story
swept all that away. Magdalen was lost to him, lost forever and ever,
and for a moment he staggered under the knowledge just as if it were the
first intimation he had received of it. Then recovering himself he went
to Magdalen’s bedside, and when at sight of him she stretched her arms
towards him and begged him to release her head, he bent over her as a
brother might and took her aching head upon his broad chest and held it
between his hands, and soothed and quieted her until she fell away to
sleep. Very carefully he laid her back upon the pillow, and then meeting
in Frank’s eye what seemed to be reproach for the liberty he had taken,
he said to him in an aside, “You need not be jealous of your old uncle,
boy. Let me help you nurse Magda as if she was my sister. She is going
to be very sick.”

Frank had never distrusted Roger and he believed him now, and all
through the long, dreary weeks when Magdalen lay at the very gates of
death, and it sometimes seemed to those who watched her as if she had
entered the unknown world, he never lost faith in the man who stood by
her so constantly, partly because he could not leave her, and partly
because she would not let him go. She got her _head_ at last from
between the boards, but it was Roger who released it for her, and with a
rain of tears, she cried, “It’s out; I shall be better now;” then, lying
back among her pillows, she fell into the quietest, most refreshing
sleep she had known for weeks. The fever was broken, the doctor said,
though it might be days before her reason was restored, and weeks before
she could be moved, except with the greatest care. When the danger was
over and he knew she would live, Roger absented himself from the
sick-room, where he was no longer needed. She did not call for him now;
she did not talk at all, but lay perfectly passive and quiet, receiving
her medicines from one as readily as from another, and apparently taking
no notice of anything transpiring around her. But she was decidedly
better, and knowing this Roger busied himself with the settlement of his
affairs, as he wished to leave Millbank as soon as possible.




                              CHAPTER XXX.
                           LEAVING MILLBANK.


It was in vain that Frank protested against the pride which refused to
receive anything from the Irving estate. Roger was firm as a rock.

“I may be foolish,” he said to Lawyer Schofield, who was often at
Millbank, and who once tried to persuade him into some settlement with
Frank. “I may be foolish, but I cannot take a penny more than the terms
of the will give to me. I have lived for years on what did not belong to
me. Let that suffice, and do not try to tempt me into doing what I
should hate myself for. I have been accustomed to habits of luxury,
which I shall find it difficult to overcome; just as I shall at first
find it hard to settle down into a steady business, and seek for
patronage with which to earn my bread. But I am comparatively young yet.
I can study and catch up in my profession. I passed a good examination
years ago. I have tried by reading not to fall far behind the present
age. I shall do very well, I’m sure.” Then he spoke of Schodick, where
he had decided to go. “Some men would choose the West as a larger field
in which to grow, and at first I looked that way myself; but Schodick
has great attractions for me. It was my mother’s home. I shall live in
the very house where she was born. You know my father gave me the farm,
and though it is rocky and hilly and sterile,—much of it,—I would rather
go there than out upon the prairies. I shall be very near the town,
which is growing rapidly, and there is a chance of my getting in with a
firm whose senior member has recently died. If I do, it will be the
making of me, and you may yet hear of Roger Irving from Schodick as a
great man.”

Roger had worked himself up to quite a pitch of enthusiasm, and seemed
much like his olden self as he talked of his plans to Lawyer Schofield,
who had never admired or respected him so much as he did when he saw him
putting the best face upon matters and bearing his reverses so
patiently. Everybody knew now that he was going to Schodick, in New
Hampshire, and that Hester and Aleck were going with him. Both seemed to
have renewed their youth to a most marvellous degree, and Hester’s form
was never more erect, or her step more elastic, than during those early
summer days, when, between the times of her ministering to Magdalen, of
whom she still had the care, she went over the house, selecting here and
there articles which she declared were _hers_, and with which Mrs.
Walter Scott did not meddle.

Full of her dread of the fever, that lady had scrupulously kept aloof
from Magdalen, and when she began to fear lest the few for whose opinion
she cared should censure her for neglect she affected symptoms of the
disease and stayed in her own room, where she received the visits of the
doctor, in white line wrappers elaborately trimmed, and a scarlet shawl
thrown across her shoulders. Frank visited her several times a day, and
once, when his heart was heaviest with the fear lest Magdalen would die,
he went to her for sympathy, and laying his head on the pillow beside
her, wept like a child. There was no pity in her voice, for she felt
none for him, and her manner was cold and indifferent as she said she
apprehended no danger,—and added that she hoped Frank would not commit
himself too far or allow his feelings to run away with his judgment. He
must remember that Magdalen had never promised to marry him, and that if
one woman could read another she did not believe she ever would.

“She loves Roger,” she said, “and he loves her, and I have made up my
mind to explain to him a few things, and thus prevent you from throwing
yourself away on a girl whose parentage is so doubtful.”

Then Frank dried his tears, and so far forgot himself as to swear
roundly that so sure as she went to Roger with such a tale, or in any
way interfered between him and Magdalen, just so sure would he _deed_
every penny of the Irving property to Roger, and if he refused to take
it, he would deed it to Magdalen, and if she refused it too, he would
make donations to every charitable institution in the land, until the
whole was given away, and he was poorer than before the will was found.
Mrs. Walter Scott was afraid of Frank in his present defiant mood, and
promised whatever he required, but suggested that it might be well for
him not to assume too much the character of Magdalen’s lover, until her
own lips had given him the right to do so. Frank knew this was good
advice, and, to a certain extent, he followed it; and when the crisis
was past, he, too, absented himself from the sick-room, and spent his
time with Roger in trying to understand the immense business which was
now his to manage, and which he no more comprehended than a child.

“It is not well to trust too much to agents and overseers. Better attend
to it yourself,” Roger said.

And then he spoke of one agent in particular whom he distrusted and had
intended to discharge, and advised Frank to see to it at once, and have
but little to do with him. And Frank promised to do so, remembering the
while, with regret, that between this man and himself there existed the
most friendly relations and perfect sympathy with regard to
_horses_,—Frank’s great weakness—which only want of money kept in
abeyance.

Like his mother, Frank was disposed to let Hester Floyd take whatever
she chose in the way of bedding and table-linen, and offered no
objections when she laid claim to the spoons and silver tea-set which
had been bought for Jessie, and were marked with her initials. Spoons
and forks of a more modern style, with only “Irving” marked upon them,
were next appropriated by the greedy old woman, who kept two men busy
one entire day packing boxes for Schodick, N. H. She was going at once
to the old farm-house, which the present tenant had, for a
consideration, been induced to vacate, and her preparations went rapidly
forward, until, at last, the day but one came, when, with her boxes and
Aleck and Matty, her grandniece, who went as maid of all work, she was
to start for the Schodick hills, while Roger went West for a few weeks,
thus leaving the old lady time to get things “straightened out and
tidied up” before he came. This had been Frank’s idea, conveyed to Roger
in the form of a suggestion that a little travel would do him good, and
his home in Schodick seem a great deal pleasanter if he found it settled
than if he went to it when all was disorder and confusion. All the
better, kindlier qualities of Frank’s nature were at work during those
last days, and even Hester brought herself to address him civilly, and
thank him cordially when, to her numerous bundles and boxes, he added a
huge basket of the choicest wines in the cellar.

“To be sure, he was only offering to Roger what was already his own,”
she said; “but then it showed that what little milk of human kindness he
had wasn’t sourer than swill, as his mother’s was.”

Roger had seen to the packing of but one article, and this he had done
by himself and then carried it to the back stoop where the other baggage
was waiting. Hester saw the long, narrow box and wondered what it was.
Frank saw it too, _guessed_ what it was, went to the garret to
reconnoitre, and then knew that it was the cradle candle-box, in which
Magdalen had been rocked. It had stood for years in a corner of the
garret, surrounded with piles of rubbish and covered with dirt and
cobwebs; but Roger had hunted it out and it was going with him to his
new home, sole memento of the young girl he had loved so dearly, and
who, all through the long bright summer days when he was so busy, lay
quiet and still, knowing nothing, or at most comprehending nothing, of
what was passing around her.

It was a strange state she was in, but the doctor said she was mending,
that the danger was past, and a week or two of perfect quiet would
restore her to a more natural condition. Had he said otherwise, Roger
would not have gone, but now it was better for him to leave her while
she was unconscious of the pain it cost him to do so; and on the night
before his departure for the West he went to look at her for the last
time. Only Celine was with her and she thoughtfully withdrew, leaving
him alone with Magdalen, whose pale lips he kissed so passionately and
on whose face he dropped tears of bitter anguish. Years after, when her
eyes were shining upon him full of love and tenderness and trust, he
told her of that parting scene; but she knew nothing of it then, and
only moved a little uneasily and muttered something he could not
understand. She had no farewell word for him, and so he kissed her lips
and forehead once more and drew the covering smoothly about her, and
buttoned the cuff of her night-dress, which he saw was unfastened, and
moved the lamp a little more into the shadow, because he thought it hurt
her eyes, and then went out and left her there alone.

                  *       *       *       *       *

They were astir early at Millbank the next morning, and a most tempting
breakfast, prepared by Hester herself, awaited Roger in the dining-room.
But he could not eat, and, after a few ineffectual attempts to swallow
the rich, golden-colored coffee, he rose from the table and left the
dining-room.

Knowing that he would, of course, come to say good-by to her, and
dreading an interview with him when no one was present, Mrs. Walter
Scott had made a “great effort” to dress herself, and come down to
breakfast. But she _panted_ hard, and seemed too weak to talk, and kept
her hand a good deal on her left side, where she said she experienced
great pain since her illness, and sometimes feared her lungs were
affected. With all her languor and weakness, she could not quite conceal
her elation at the near prospect of being entirely alone in her glory,
and it showed itself in her face and in her eyes, which, nevertheless,
tried to look so sorry and pitiful when, at last, Roger turned to her to
say good-by.

She had nothing to fear from him now. He had given up quietly. Success
was hers, with riches and luxury. It could matter little what Roger
thought of her. His opinion could not change her position at Millbank.
Still, in her heart she respected him more than any man living, and
would rather he thought well of her than ill. So, with that look in her
eyes which they always wore when she wanted to be particularly
interesting, she held his hand between her own and said,—

“I can’t let you go without hearing you say that you forgive me for any
wrong you imagine me to have done, and that you will not cherish hard
feelings toward me. Tell me this, can’t you, _dear brother_?”

He dropped her hand then, as if a viper had stung him, and a gleam of
fire leaped to his eyes as he replied:

“Don’t call me _brother_, now, Helen. That time is past. You have
wronged me fearfully, and but for you I should never have met this hour
of darkness. If God can forgive me for all my sins against Him, I surely
ought to try and forgive you, too. But human flesh is weak, and I cannot
say that I feel very kindly towards you, for I do not.”

He had never said so much to her before, and the proud woman winced a
little, but tried to appear natural, and, for appearance sake, went with
him to the door, and stood watching the carriage until it left the
avenue and turned into the highway.

In perfect silence Roger passed through the grounds, so beautiful now in
their summer glory, but as the carriage left the park behind, he leaned
from the window for a last look at his old home. The sun was just rising
and the dew-drops were glittering on the grass and flowers, while the
thousands of roses with which the place was adorned filled the air with
perfume. It seemed a second Paradise to the heart-broken man, whose
thoughts went back to the dream he once had of just such a day as this
when he was leaving Millbank. In the dream, however, there was this
difference: Magdalen was with him; her hand lay in his, her eyes shone
upon him, and turned the midnight into noonday. Now he was alone, so far
as she was concerned. Magda was not there; she would never be with him
again, unless she came the wife of Frank, who sat opposite, with an
expression of genuine sympathy on his boyish face. Frank was sorry that
morning, so sorry that he could not talk; but when, as they lost sight
of Millbank, Roger groaned aloud and leaned his head against the side of
the carriage, he went over to him, and sitting down beside him took his
hand in his own and pressed it nervously.

There was a crowd of people at the station; the whole village, Frank
thought, when he saw the moving multitude which pressed around Roger to
say good-by and assure him of their willingness to serve him. There were
mills in Schodick, they had heard, and shoe shops, too; and a few were
already talking of following their late master thither.

“It would be worth something to see him round even if they did not work
for him,” they said.

And Roger heard all and saw all, and said good-by to all, and took in
his arms the little baby boy named for him ten months before, and said
playfully to the mother, “He shall have the first _cow_ I raise on my
farm.”

And then the train came round the river bend and the crowd fell back,
and Frank went with Roger into the car and waited there until the train
began to move, when with a bound he sprang upon the platform, and those
nearest to him saw that he was very white and that there were traces of
tears in his eyes. No one spoke to him, though all made way for him to
pass to his carriage, which drove rapidly back to Millbank, which was
now his beyond a doubt.

Hester Floyd went later in the day, and to the last stood out against
Mrs. Walter Scott, whom she did not deign to notice by so much as a
farewell nod. Over Magdalen she bent lovingly, trying to make her
comprehend that she was going away, but Magdalen only stared at her a
moment with her wide open eyes, and then closed them wearily, and knew
nothing of Hester’s tears or the great wet kiss which was laid upon her
forehead.

“She’s to be the lady of Millbank, I s’pose, but I don’t begrutch her
her happiness with that old sarpent for a mother-in-law and that
white-livered critter for a husband,” Hester thought as she stole softly
from the room and went down to where the drayman was loading her
numerous boxes and bundles. Frank offered her the use of the carriage to
carry herself and Aleck to the station; but she declined the offer, and
took a fierce kind of pride in seeing the village hack drive up to the
side door. “She as’t no odds of nobody,” she said, and tying on her six
years’ old straw bonnet, and pinning her brown shawl with a
darning-needle, she saw deposited in the hack her old-fashioned
work-basket and her satchel and bird cage and umbrella, and her bandbox
tied up in a calico bag, and her palm-leaf fan, and Aleck, and Matty,
who carried two beautiful Malta kittens in a basket as her own special
property. Then, with a quick, sudden movement, and an indifference she
was far from feeling, she shook the hands of all her fellow-servants
over whom she had reigned so long, and hoping they would never find a
“_wus_” mistress than she had been, sprang into the hack with an
alacrity which belied her seventy summers, and was driven to the depot.

From her window Mrs. Walter Scott watched the fast receding vehicle, and
felt herself breathe freer with every revolution of the wheels. When
Roger went, a great weight had been lifted from her spirits, but so long
as old Hester Floyd remained she could not feel altogether free; and now
that the good dame was really out of the house she sat perfectly still
until she heard the whistle of the engine, and saw the white smoke of
the train which carried the enemy away. Then she rose up from her
sitting posture, and her long graceful neck took a prouder arch, and her
step was more firm, her manner more queenly, as she went directly to the
kitchen, and summoning the servants to her presence told them they were
at liberty to leave her employ within a month, as she should by that
time have provided her self with other help. Very civilly they listened
to her, and when she was through informed her that she need not wait a
month before importing her new coterie of servants, as each one of them
was already supplied with a situation, and was intending to leave her
that night, with the exception of Celine, who had promised Mrs. Floyd to
stay till Miss Lennox’s mind was restored.

With a haughty, “Very well, do as you like,” Mrs. Walter Scott swept out
of the kitchen and made the circuit of the handsome rooms which were now
her own. Frank, too, had watched the hack as it drove away, and listened
for the signal by which he should know that Hester Floyd was gone, for
not till then could _he_ feel perfectly secure in his possessions. But
as the loud, shrill blast came up over the hills and then died away amid
the windings of the river, there stole over him a pleasurable sense of
proprietorship, and he thought involuntarily of the familiar lines, “I
am monarch of all I survey, my right there is none to dispute.” Frank
liked to feel comfortable in his mind, and as he reviewed the steps by
which he had reached his present position, he found many arguments in
his own favor which tended to silence any misgivings he might otherwise
have experienced. He was not to blame for his grandfather’s will, nor to
blame for hiding it. Everybody knew that. Roger said he was not, and
Roger’s opinion was worth everything to him. He had been willing to burn
the will, and when he could not do that, he offered repeatedly to divide
with Roger, and was willing to divide now and always would be. Surely he
could do no more than he had done. He was a pretty good fellow after
all, and he began to whistle “Annie Laurie” and think of the agent whom
Roger had warned him against, and wished it had been anybody but _Holt_,
who was such a good judge of horses, and had such a fine high blood for
sale, which he offered cheap, because he needed a little ready money. As
the war steed scents the battle from afar, and pricks up his ears at the
smell of blood, so Frank felt his love of horse flesh growing strong
within him. There could be no harm in riding over to _see_ Holt’s horse.
He would have to go there any way if he dismissed the man, as Roger had
advised, and he would go at once and have a bad job off his mind.
Accordingly, when lunch time came Mrs. Walter Scott lunched alone, and
when the dinner hour came she dined alone, and when the stable doors
were closed that night they shut into his new home Firefly, “the
swiftest horse in the county,” which Frank had bought for eleven hundred
dollars.

Holt, the agent, was not dismissed!




                             CHAPTER XXXI.
                         THE HOME IN SCHODICK.


It was a quiet, old-fashioned farm-house, with gables and projections
and large rooms and pleasant fireplaces and low ceilings and small
windows, looking some of them toward the village, with its houses of
white nestled among the trees, and some of them upon the hills, whose
shadows enfolded the farm-house in an early twilight at night, and in
the morning reflected back the warm sunshine which lay so brightly upon
their wooded sides. There was a kitchen with a door to the north, and a
door to the south, and a door to the east, leading out into the
woodshed, and there were stairs leading to an upper room, and a
fire-place “big enough to roast an ox,” Hester said, when, with her
basket and bandbox and umbrella and camlet cloak and bird cage and
kittens and Aleck, she was dropped at her new home and began to
reconnoitre, deciding, first, that the late tenants of the place were
“shiffless critters, or they would never have lived there so long with
only a wooden latch and a wooden button on the outside door,” and
second, that they were “dirty as the rot, or they would never have left
them stains on the buttry shelf, that looked so much like cheese-mould.”

Hester was not altogether pleased with the house. It came a little hard
to change from luxurious Millbank to this old brown farm-house, with its
oaken floors and stone hearth and tiny panes of glass, and for a time
the old lady was as homesick as she could be. But this only lasted until
she got well to work in the cleaning process, which occupied her mind so
wholly that she forgot herself, and only thought how to make the house a
fitting place for her boy to come to after his travels West. Roger had
given her money with which to furnish the house, and she had added more
of her own, while Frank, when parting with her, had slipped into her
hands one hundred dollars, saying to her, “Roger is too proud to take
anything from me, and I want you to use this for the house.”

And so it was owing partly to Frank’s thoughtfulness and Hester’s
generosity that the farm-house, when renovated with paper and paint, and
furnished with the pretty, tasteful furniture which Hester bought,
looked as well and inviting as it did. The most pains had been taken
with Roger’s room, the one his mother occupied when a girl. Hester had
ascertained which it was from an inhabitant of Schodick, who had been
Jessie’s friend, and slept with her many a time in the room under the
roof, which looked off upon the pond and up the side of the steep hills.
The prettiest carpet was put down there, and curtains were hung before
the windows, and the bed made up high and clean with ruffled sheets and
pillow-cases, mementos of Millbank, and Jessie’s picture was hung on the
wall, the blue eyes seeming to look sadly round upon a spot they had
known in happier days than those when the portrait was taken. There were
flowers, too, in great profusion,—not costly, hot-house flowers, like
those which decked the rooms at Millbank, but sweet, home-flowers, like
those which grow around the doors and in the gardens of so many happy
New England homes,—the fragrant pink and old-fashioned rose and
honeysuckle and heliotrope, with verbenas and the sweet mignonette.

And here Roger came one pleasant July afternoon, when a heavy
thunder-storm had laid the dust, and cooled the air, and set every
little bird to singing its blithest notes, and, alas! soured the rich,
thick cream, which Hester had put away for the few luscious wild
strawberries which, late as it was for them, Mattie had found in the
meadow, by the fence, and picked for Mr. Roger. With the exception of
this little drawback, Hester was perfectly happy, and her face was
radiant when she met her boy at the door, and welcomed him to his new
home, taking him first to his own room, because it looked the prettiest,
and would give him the best impression.

Roger had been in Schodick once or twice when a boy, but everything now
was new and strange, while, struggle as he might against it, the
contrast between the old home and the new affected him painfully at
first, and it was weeks before he could settle down quietly, and give
his time and attention to the firm of which he at once became a member.
For days and days he found his chief solace in wandering over the hills
where his mother once had been, and exploring the shadowy woods, and
hunting out the rock under the overhanging pine, where she had crept
away from sight, and prayed that she might die, when the great sorrow
was in her heart, just as it was now in his. He found the spot at last,
just under the shadow of one great rock and on the ledge of another,
where the ground was carpeted thickly with the red pine of last year’s
growth, and the green, tasselated boughs above his head seemed to
whisper softly, and try to comfort him.

Here poor Jessie had knelt, and felt that her heart was breaking. And
here Roger sat, and felt that _his_ heart was broken.

He had tried not to think much of Magdalen, and during the novelty and
excitement of travelling he had not felt the bitter pain tugging at his
heart as it was tugging now, causing him to cry out, in his anguish:

“Oh, Magda, my darling! how can I live without you?”

He had his father’s letter with him, and he read it again there in the
dim light, and was struck, as he had never before been, with that clause
which said:

“And if, in the course of your life, there is one thing more than
another which you desire, I pray Heaven to grant it to you!”

He had read these lines many times, but they never impressed him so
forcibly as now. It was his father’s last invocation to Heaven in his
behalf. The one thing more than another which he desired was Magdalen,
and why had God withheld her from him? Why had He not heard and answered
the father’s prayer? Why had He dealt so harshly by the son, taking from
him everything which had hitherto made life desirable?

These were hard questions for a creature to ask its Creator. And Roger
felt hard and rebellious as he asked them, with his face among the cones
and withered pines, and from the pitiless skies above him there came no
answer back, for it is not thus that God will have His children question
Him.

Roger could not be submissive then, and for hours he sat there alone,
battling with his sorrow, and never trying to pray until at the very
last, when with a cry such as a wayward child gives when the will is
finally broken, he covered his face with his hands and prayed earnestly
to be forgiven for all the wicked, rebellious feelings he had cherished,
and for strength to bear whatever the future had in store for him. After
that he never gave way again as he had done before, though he went often
to that rock under the pine, and made it a kind of Bethel where, unseen
by mortal eye, he could tell his troubles to God, and go away with the
burden somewhat lightened.

They heard at the farm-house that Magdalen was improving slowly, and
then there came a rumor in a roundabout way, that the day for the bridal
was fixed, and that Mrs. Walter Scott was in New York selecting the
bridal trousseau. Roger’s face was very white for a few days after that,
and nothing had power to clear the shadow from his brow, until one
morning there came a letter to Hester Floyd from Magdalen herself, with
the delicate perfumery she always used lingering about it, and her
pretty monogram upon the seal. How Roger pressed the inanimate thing in
one hand and caressed it with the other, and how fast he carried it to
Hester, who was in the midst of working over her morning’s churning, but
who put the tray aside at once and washed her hands, and adjusted her
spectacles, while Roger stood by inwardly chafing at the delay and
longing to know what Magdalen had written. It was very short indeed, and
formal and stiff, and did not sound at all like Magdalen. She was quite
well now, and she wanted to thank Mrs. Floyd for all the care she had
taken of her before leaving Millbank.

  “Mrs. Irving tells me you were very kind to me,” she wrote, “and
  though I have no recollection that you or any one but Celine came near
  me, I am grateful all the same, and shall always remember your
  kindness to me both then and when I was a child, and such a care to
  you; I am deeply grateful to all who have done so much for me, and I
  wish them to know it, and remember me kindly as I do them. I am going
  away soon, and I want to take with me all I brought to Millbank. I
  have the locket, but the little dress I cannot find. Mrs. Irving
  thinks you took it in the chest. Did you, and if so, will you please
  send it to me at once by express, and oblige,

                                             “Yours truly,
                                                             “MAGDALEN.”

That was the letter. Not one word in it to Roger, except as the sentence
beginning with “I am deeply grateful to _all_ who have done so much for
me,” was supposed to refer to him. She wished him to remember her kindly
as she did him, and she was going away from Millbank, but _where_, or
how, or with whom, Roger could not tell. Hester _knew_ she was going to
be married, though why “she should want to lug that dud of a slip round
with her finery was more than she could divine,” she said, as she
brought down the little spotted crimson dress, and wrapping it in thick
brown paper gave it to Roger to direct.

“Maybe you’ll write her a line or two for me; my hand is too shaky and
cramped,” she said to Roger, who shook his head and replied, “You must
answer your own letters, Hester;” but he directed the little parcel to
“Miss Magdalen Lennox, Belvidere,” and sent it on its way to Millbank.




                             CHAPTER XXXII.
                          MAGDALEN’S DECISION.


It was a warm morning in early August when Magdalen came fully to
herself and looked around her with a feeling of wonder and uncertainty
as to where she was and what had happened to her. The last thing she
could remember distinctly was of being cold and chilly, and that the
night wind blew upon her as she groped her way back to her room. Now the
doors and windows were opened, and the warm summer rain was falling on
the lawn outside and sifting down among the green leaves of the
honeysuckle which was trained across the window. There were flowers in
her room,—summer flowers,—such as grew in the garden beds, and it must
be that it was summer now, and many weeks had passed since that dreadful
night whose incidents she finally recalled, knowing at last what had
happened in part. _She_ had found the will, and Mrs. Walter Scott had
carried it to Roger, who was not as angry as she had feared he might be.
Nay, he was not angry at all, and his manner towards her when she went
to him in the library had belied what Frank had said, and her cheeks
flushed and her pulse throbbed with delight as she felt again the kisses
Roger had rained upon her lips and forehead and hair, and heard his
voice calling her—“Magda, my darling, my darling.” He had done all this
on that night which must have been so long ago, and that meant _love_,
and Frank was mistaken or wished to deceive her, and she should tell him
so and free herself wholly from him and then wait for Roger to follow up
his words and acts, as he was bound in honor to do. Of all this Magdalen
thought, and then she wondered what had been done about the will, and if
Roger would really go away from Millbank; and if so, would he take her
with him or leave her for awhile and come for her again. That he _had_
gone she never for a moment suspected. She had been delirious, she knew,
but not so much so that some subtle influence would not have told her
when Roger came to say good-by. He was there still. He had arranged
those beautiful bouquets which looked so fresh and bright, and had set
those violets just where she could see them. He had remembered all her
tastes, and would come soon to see her and be so glad when he found how
much better she was. At last there was a step in the hall; somebody was
coming, but it was not Roger, nor Frank, nor yet Celine. _She_ had
finally been sent away, though she had stood her ground bravely for a
time in spite of Mrs. Walter Scott’s lofty ways and cool hints that Miss
Lennox would do quite as well with a stranger, inasmuch as she did not
know one person from another. She called her _Miss Lennox_ now
altogether. _Magdalen_ would have been too familiar and savored too much
of relationship, real or prospective, and this the lady was determined
to prevent. But she said nothing as yet. The time for talking had not
come, and might never come if Magdalen only had sense enough to answer
Frank in the negative. He was still anxious, still waiting for that
torpor to pass away and leave Magdalen herself again. In his estimation
she was already his, for surely she could not refuse him now when
everybody looked upon the marriage as a settled thing, and he insisted
that everything should be done for her comfort, and every care given to
her which would be given to Mrs. Franklin Irving. And in this his mother
dared not cross him. His will was stronger on that point than her own,
and hence the perfect order in the sick-room, and the evidences of kind,
thoughtful attention which Magdalen had been so quick to detect. In one
thing, however, Mrs. Walter Scott had had her way. She had dismissed
Celine outright, and put in her place a maid of her own choosing, and it
was her step which Magdalen heard, coming towards her room. She was not
a bad-faced girl, and she smiled pleasantly as she spoke to Magdalen and
said, “You are better this morning, Miss Lennox.”

“Yes, a great deal better. Have I been sick long, and where are they
all? Who are you, and where is Celine?” Magdalen asked, and the girl
replied, “She left here some two weeks ago and I came in her place; I am
Sarah King; can I do anything for you?”

“Nothing but answer my questions. How long have I been sick, and where
are Hester Floyd and Mr. Irving?”

She meant Roger, but the girl was thinking of Frank, and replied, “Mr.
Irving went to Springfield yesterday, but will be home to-night, I
guess, and so glad to find you better; he has been so concerned about
you, and is in here two or three times a day.”

“Is he?” and Magdalen’s face flushed at this proof of Roger’s interest
in her.

“Don’t you remember anything about it?” the girl asked, and Magdalen
replied, “Nothing; it is all like a long, disturbed sleep. Where is
Hester, did you say?”

“You mean Mrs. Floyd, I suppose; she has been gone some time,—to
Schodick, or some such place. She went with _old_ Mr. Irving, Mr.
Franklin’s uncle, I believe. He is West somewhere now, I heard madam
say. I have never seen him, nor Mrs. Floyd.”

She meant Roger by _old Mr. Irving_, and ordinarily Magdalen would have
laughed merrily at the mistake, but now she was too much surprised and
pained to give it more than a thought.

“Roger, Mr. Roger Irving gone, and Hester, too?” she cried. “When did
they go, and why did they leave me here so sick? Has everybody gone?
Tell me, please, all you know about it.”

Sarah knew very little, but that little she told, and then Magdalen knew
that of all the once happy household at Millbank she was left alone.
Hester was gone, the old servants gone, and Roger was gone, too. That
was the hardest part of all, and the tears sprang to her eyes as a
feeling of homesickness came stealing over her.

“I’d better call Mrs. Irving,” Sarah said, puzzled to know why Magdalen
should cry, and she left the room to do so.

Fifteen minutes later and Mrs. Walter Scott came in, habited in white,
with puffs and tucks and rich embroidery wherever there was a place for
it, and on her head a jaunty little morning cap of the softest
Valenciennes, with a bit of lavender ribbon to relieve it. She was not
all smiles and tenderness now, and there was about her a studied
politeness wholly different from her old caressing manner toward
Magdalen.

“Sarah tells me you are better this morning, and you do look greatly
improved,” she said, standing back a little from the bed and feigning
not to see the hand which Magdalen held toward her.

Magdalen felt the change in a moment and understood the cause. Mrs.
Irving was now the undisputed mistress of Millbank, and she the poor
dependant, left there on the lady’s hands, a burden and a drag whom
nobody wanted. That was the way Magdalen put it, and her tears fell like
rain as she replied, “Yes, I am better, but I,—I—don’t understand it at
all, or why I should be left here alone; why didn’t they take me with
them?”

“I suppose because you were too sick to be moved, though I knew but
little about their movements. Mrs. Floyd was so very rude and ill-bred
that I kept out of her way as much as possible, and as Roger avoided me,
I saw but little of them. It is not worth while to distress yourself
unnecessarily,” the cruel woman went on as she saw how Magdalen cried.
“We have taken every possible care of you and shall continue to do so
until you are well, when, if you, wish to join your friends in Schodick,
we will provide the means for you to do so.”

Nothing could be cooler than her tone and manner and words, and but for
her face, which there was no mistaking, Magdalen would have doubted her
identity with the oily-tongued woman who used to caress and pet her so
much, and to whom at one time she had paid a kind of child-worship. But
it _was_ the same woman, and she stood a moment longer, looking coldly
at Magdalen, and picking a dried leaf or two from the vase of flowers on
the stand; then consulting her watch she said, “You must excuse me now,
as I have an engagement at ten. Sarah will see that you have everything
you want. You will find her an excellent nurse. I chose her myself from
a dozen applicants for the place. I’ll see you again by and by. I wish
you good-morning.”

For a few moments Magdalen lay like one stunned; then, as she began to
reason upon the matter and to understand it more clearly, her pride came
to her aid; and when at last Sarah went back to her, she found her with
flushed cheeks and a resolute, determined look in her eyes, which
flashed and sparkled with much of their former fire.

Frank did not return till the next night. There was a horserace in
Springfield and he had Firefly there and put him on the course and won a
bet and made for himself quite a reputation as a horse-jockey; and he
paid Holt’s bills at the Massasoit House, and sent bottles of champagne
to sundry other “good fellows” who had praised his skill in driving and
praised his horse and flattered him generally. Then he promised to look
at another horse which somebody recommended as unsurpassed in the
saddle, and took several shares in a new speculation which was sure to
go if “the rich Mr. Irving patronized it,” and which if it went was sure
to pay double. Judge Burleigh, of Boston, who was stopping at the
Massasoit, had sought him out and introduced his daughter Bell, a
handsome, haughty girl, who had made fun of his light mustache and
boyish face before she knew who he was, and then been very gracious to
him after. Bell Burleigh was poor and fashionable and extravagant, and
on the lookout for a husband. Frank Irving was rich, and master of the
finest residence in the county, and worth cultivating, and so she
expended upon him every art known to a thorough woman of the world, and
walked with him through the halls and sat with him in the parlor in the
evening, and went out in the morning to see him drive Firefly round the
course, and had her father ask him to their table at dinner time, and
flattered and courted him until he began to wonder why other people
beside Bell Burleigh had not discovered what an entertaining and
agreeable man he was! But through it all he never for a moment wavered
in his allegiance to Magdalen. Bell’s influence could not make him do
that; but it inflated his pride and made him less able to bear the
humiliation to which Magdalen was about to subject him.

After her first interview with Magdalen, Mrs. Walter Scott did not see
her again until her son returned, though she sent twice to know how she
was feeling and if she would have anything. To these inquiries Magdalen
had answered that she was doing very well and did not want anything more
than she already had, and this was all that had passed between the two
ladies when Frank came home from Springfield. He heard from Sarah of the
change in Magdalen; but heard, too, that she could not see him that
night, as she had been sitting up some little time and was very tired.
The next day it was the same, and the next. She was too weak to talk,
and would rather Mr. Irving should wait before she saw him. And so Frank
waited and chafed and fretted and lost his temper with his mother, who
maintained through all the utmost reserve with regard to Magdalen,
feeling intuitively that matters were adjusting themselves to her
satisfaction. She guessed what the delay portended, and on the strength
of it went once or twice to the sick-room, and was a little more
gracious than at first. But Magdalen was very reserved toward her now,
barely answering her questions, and seeming relieved when she went away.

Frank saw her at last. She was sitting up in her easy chair, and her
face was very pale at first, but flushed and grew crimson as Frank bent
over her and kissed her forehead and called her his darling, and told
her how glad he was to find her better, and how miserable he had been
during the last few days because he could not see her.

“It was naughty in you to banish me so long. Don’t you think so,
darling?” he said playfully, as he stooped again to kiss her.

He was taking everything for granted, and Magdalen gasped for breath as
she put up both hands to thrust him aside, for she felt as if she were
smothering with him so near to her.

“Sit down, Frank,” she said, “sit there by the window,” and she pointed
to a seat so far from her that more kisses were out of the question.

Something in her tone startled him, and he sat where she bade him sit
and then listened breathlessly while she went over the whole ground
carefully, and at last, as gently as possible, for she would not
unnecessarily wound him, told him she could not be his wife.

“I decided that before I knew Roger had the will,” she said, “and I sent
for you to tell you so on that dreadful day when so much happened here.
I like you, Frank, and I know you have been very kind to me, but I
cannot be your wife; I do not love you well enough for that.”

It was in vain that Frank begged her to consider, to take time to think.
She surely did not know what she was doing when she refused _him_; and
he thought of Bell Burleigh and all the flattery he had received in
Springfield, and wished Magdalen could know how highly some people
esteemed him.

Magdalen understood him in part, and smiled a little derisively as she
replied: “I know well what I am doing, Frank; I am refusing one who, the
world would say, was far above me,—a poor girl, with neither home, nor
friends, nor name.”

“What, then, do you propose to do?” Frank asked, “if, as you say, you
are without home or friends.”

“I don’t know. Oh, I don’t know. Some way will be provided,” Magdalen
answered sadly, her heart going out in a longing cry after Roger.

As if divining the thought, and feeling jealous and angry on account of
it, Frank continued:

“You surely would not go to Schodick now. Even your love for Roger would
not allow you to do so unmaidenly a thing as that.”

He spoke bitterly, for he felt bitterly, and when he saw how white
Magdalen grew, and how she gasped for breath, he went on pitilessly,—“I
think I know what stands between us. You fancy you love Roger best.”

“Hush! Frank, hush!” Magdalen cried, and the color came rushing back
into her face. “If I _do_ love Roger best, _it_ is not to be mentioned
between us, and you must respect the feeling. He does not care for me,
or he would not have left me here so sick, without a word of farewell to
be given when I could understand it. _Did_ he leave any message, Frank?”

Had Magdalen been stronger, she would never have admitted what she was
admitting to Frank, who, still more piqued and irritated, answered her,
“None that I ever heard of.”

“Or come to see me either? Didn’t he do so much as that?”

Frank could have told her of the many nights and days when Roger never
left her side, except as it was absolutely necessary; but he would not
even tell her that; he merely said: “I dare say he looked in upon you
before he left, but I do not know. He was very busy those last few days,
and had a great deal to do.”

Magdalen’s lip quivered, but she made a great effort not to show how
much she was pained by Roger’s seeming indifference and neglect. Still,
it did show upon her face, for she was weak, and tired, and worn, and
the great tears came dropping from her eyes, as she thought how mistaken
she had been, and how desolate and alone she was in the great world. And
Frank pitied her at last, and tried to comfort her, but would not say a
word which would give her hope, with regard to Roger. He should not
consider her answer as final, he said, when she begged him to leave her.
She would feel differently by and by, when she saw matters as they
really were. She had no other home but Millbank, as she, of course,
would not follow Roger to Schodick. He placed great emphasis on the word
_follow_, and Magdalen felt her blood tingle to her finger tips as he
went on to say, that, let her decision be what it might, her rightful
place was there at Millbank, which he wished her to consider her home,
just as she always had done. She surely ought to be as willing to look
to him for support as to Roger, who was in no condition now to enlarge
his household, even if he wished to do it.

He left her then, and went at once to his mother. He had staked his all
on Magdalen, and he must not lose her,—for aside from the great trial it
would be to him, there was the bitter mortification he would be
compelled to endure, for he had suffered the people of Belvidere to
believe in his engagement, and Magdalen must be won, or at least kept at
Millbank and in order to do this there must be a perfect understanding
between himself and his mother. And after a half hour’s interview there
_was_ a perfect understanding, and Mrs. Walter Scott knew that if by
word or sign she helped Magdalen to a knowledge of Roger’s love for her,
and so separated her from Frank, just so sure would he carry out his
former threat, of deeding Millbank away. That point was settled, and
another too, which was, that Magdalen should be treated with all the
kindness and attention due to an inmate of the house, and one who might,
perhaps, be its mistress.

“But whether she is or not, mother, you’ve got to come down from your
stilts, and treat her as you did before the confounded will was found,
or, by the Harry, I’ll do something you’ll be sorry for.”

Frank’s recent intercourse with horse-jockeys, and men of the
race-course, had not improved his language; but he was in earnest, and
his mother promised whatever he required, and kept her promise all the
more readily, because she knew that do what he would, and plead as he
might, Magdalen would never be his wife.




                            CHAPTER XXXIII.
                       THE BEGINNING OF THE END.


  Wanted,— A young woman of pleasing address, and cultivated manners, as
  companion for a young lady who suffers greatly from ill health and
  nervous depression. It is desirable that the applicant should be both
  a good reader and good musician.

  “Address, for four weeks,

                              “MRS. PENELOPE SEYMOUR,
                                                  ‘St. Denis, New York.’

This advertisement was in the _Herald_, which Frank laid upon the table
in the room where both his mother and Magdalen were sitting. It was four
weeks since Magdalen’s first awakening to perfect consciousness after
her long illness, and in that time she had improved rapidly. She went to
the table now, and had ridden two or three times with Mrs. Walter Scott,
between whom and herself there was a kind of tacit understanding that,
so long as they remained together, each was to be as civil and polite to
the other as possible, knowing the while that each would be glad to be
relieved of the other’s society. Frank had made several efforts to ride
with Magdalen. He wanted to exhibit her in town with his new bays, which
he had bought for an enormous sum. But Magdalen always made some excuse;
and without seeming to do it, Mrs. Walter Scott helped her to avoid him,
so that he had had no opportunity for seeing her alone, since the
interview in her chamber, when she told him her answer was final, and he
had refused to consider it as such. He had been invited to join a party
of young men from Hartford and Springfield, who were going on a fishing
excursion to the Thousand Islands and from thence into Canada, if there
should prove to be good hunting there, and when he brought the _Herald_
into the sitting-room, he came also to say good-by to his mother and
Magdalen.

“Perhaps I shall be gone six weeks,” he said, in reply to his mother’s
questions as to his return, and he looked at Magdalen to see how she
would take it.

She was relieved rather than sorry, and he saw it, and felt a good deal
chagrined, as he shook her hand at parting, and received her kind wishes
for a pleasant trip. After he was gone, she took up the _Herald_, and
ran her eye over its columns, till she reached the list of “Wanted.” She
had studied that list before, for she had it in her mind to find some
situation, as teacher or governess, which would take her from Millbank
and make her independent of every one. She saw the advertisement for a
young woman, who was “a good reader, and good musician.” She knew she
was both, and knew, too, that she was of “pleasing address” and
“cultivated manners.” She did not object to being a companion for an
invalid. It would be easier than a teacher’s life, and she would write
to “Mrs. Penelope Seymour” and see what that lady had to say.
Accordingly, the very next mail which went to New York from Belvidere
carried a letter of inquiry from Magdalen to Mrs. Seymour, whose reply
came at once; a short note, written in a plain, square hand, and
directly to the point. There had been many applications for the
situation, but something in Miss Lennox’s manner of expressing herself
had turned the scale in her favor, and Mrs. Seymour would be glad to see
her at the St. Denis, as soon as possible. Terms, five hundred dollars a
year, with a great deal of leisure.

Five hundred dollars a year seemed a vast amount of money to Magdalen,
who had never earned a penny since the berries picked for that
photograph sent to Roger, and she began at once to think how she would
lay it up, until she had enough to make it worth giving to Roger, who
should not know from whence it came, so adroitly would she manage. She
had in her own mind accepted the situation, but, before she wrote again
to Mrs. Seymour, it would be proper to lay the case before Mrs. Walter
Scott, and, for form’s sake, ask her advice. That lady was delighted,
for now a riddance from Magdalen was sure without her intervention, but
she kept her delight to herself and seemed, for several minutes, to be
considering. Then she said something about its not being what her son
expected or wished, and asked if Magdalen was fully resolved not to
marry Frank.

Magdalen knew this to be a mere ruse, done for politeness’ sake, and she
bit her lip to keep from answering hastily.

Her decision was final, she said. She should probably never marry any
one certainly not Frank; and she could not remain at Millbank longer
than was absolutely necessary. Mrs. Irving must know how very unpleasant
it was, and what an awkward position it placed her in.

Mrs. Irving did know, and fully appreciated Magdalen’s nice sense of
propriety, and she was very gracious to the young girl, and said she was
welcome to stay at Millbank as long as she liked, but, if she preferred
to be less dependent, she respected the feeling, and thought, perhaps,
Mrs. Seymour’s offer was as good as she would have, and it might be well
to accept it.

And so it was accepted, and Magdalen made haste to get away, before
Frank’s return. She hunted for the little dress, impelled by a feeling
that somewhere in the wide world, into which she was going, she might
find her mother, and she would have every possible link by which the
identity could be proven. Mrs. Walter Scott had told her that Hester
Floyd took the chest of linen in which the dress was laid and so she
wrote to Hester the letter we have seen. Once she thought to send some
word direct to Roger, but her pride came up to prevent that. He had
never written to _her_, or sent to inquire for her that she knew of, for
Frank had not told her of a letter written on the prairies, in which
Roger had inquired anxiously for her and asked to be remembered. Roger
did not care for her messages, she thought, and she wrote as formally as
possible, and then, with a strange inconsistency, expected that Roger
would answer the letter. But only the package came, directed in his
handwriting, and Magdalen could have cried when she saw there was
nothing more. She cut the direction out, and put it away in a little
box, with all the letters Roger had written her from Europe, and then
went steadily on with her preparations for leaving Millbank.

It was known, now, in town, that Magdalen was going away, and it created
quite a sensation among her circle of friends. She was _not_ to marry
Frank. She was not as mercenary as many had believed her to be, and the
tide turned in her favor, and Mrs. Johnson called with her daughter
Nellie, now Mrs. Marsh, of Boston, and all the _élite_ of the town came
up to see her, and without expressing it in words, managed to let her
know how much she had risen in their estimation by the step she was
taking. They could not quite understand it all, but they spoke
encouragingly to her, and invited her to their houses, whenever she
chose to come, and went to the depot to see her off, on the bright
autumnal day when she finally left Millbank for a home with Mrs.
Penelope Seymour.




                             CHAPTER XXXIV.
                         MRS. PENELOPE SEYMOUR.


Magdalen felt herself growing very nervous and uneasy as the long train
came slowly into New York, and car after car was detached and drawn away
by horses. She was in the last of all, and was feeling very forlorn and
homesick and half inclined to cry, just as a voice by the door asked:
“Is Miss Lennox, from Belvidere, here?”

There was reassurance in the tone of the voice, and reassurance in the
expression of the frank, open face of the young man, who, as Magdalen
rose from her seat, came quickly to her side, and doffing his hat, said:
“Miss Lennox, I presume? I am Guy Seymour, Aunt Pen’s nephew, or as she
would tell you, her husband’s nephew, and she has kept me in a constant
state of worry the entire day on your account. I was at the depot at
least an hour before there was any possible hope of the train, and as
you are an hour behind, that makes two hours I have waited, so you see I
have done my duty. Allow me to take your satchel and umbrella. You
haven’t a bandbox, have you?”

The comical look in the saucy brown eyes, which turned upon Magdalen,
betrayed the fact that he was quizzing her a little. But Magdalen did
not mind it. She felt a kind of security with him, and liked him at once
in spite of the bandbox thrust.

“This way, please; perhaps you’d better take my arm,” he said, as he
made his way through the crowd to a carriage, which was waiting for him.

When once fairly seated, Magdalen had leisure to study her _vis-à-vis_
more closely. He was apparently twenty-five or twenty-six years of age,
a young man who had seen a great deal of fashion and society, and who
still retained about him a certain air of frankness and candor and
simplicity, which opened a way for him at once to every stranger’s
heart. There was something in the wave of his hair and the cast of his
head which reminded Magdalen of Roger, and made her feel as if she had
found a friend. He was inclined to be quite sociable, and after
exhausting the weather, he said to her, “You are from Belvidere, I
believe? Do you know a Mr. Irving there, the one who has so recently
come into a fortune?”

Magdalen looked quickly up, and her face was scarlet as she replied, “I
know him, yes. Is he an acquaintance of yours?”

“I was two years behind him in college, but sophs and seniors are as
widely apart as the poles. I wonder if he is greatly improved. I used to
think him a kind of a prig.”

“I may as well start with a right understanding at once,” Magdalen
thought, and she answered a little haughtily. “Mr. Frank Irving is a
friend of mine. I have known him ever since I can remember. Millbank is
the only home I have ever had.”

Magdalen thought her companion came near whistling in his surprise, and
she felt sure that he was regarding her more curiously than he had done
before, while for some reason he seemed more attentive and polite, and
by the time the St. Denis was reached, she felt as if she had known him
months instead of a brief half hour.

“You must not mind if you find Aunt Pen a little stiff at first. She has
a great deal of starch in her composition,” he said as he ran up the
stairs and down the hall in the direction of No.——.

And stiff, indeed, Magdalen did find Aunt Pen, as the nephew called her.
A little, short, straight, square-backed woman of sixty or thereabouts,
with iron-gray hair, arranged in puffs around her forehead,—a proud,
haughty, wrinkled face, and round bright eyes, which seemed to look
straight through Magdalen as Guy ushered her into the room.

“Miss Lennox, Auntie Pen,” he said, and taking Magdalen by the arm he
led her up to his aunt, who felt constrained to offer her jewelled hand,
but who did it in such a way that Magdalen felt the conventional gulf
there was between them in the lady’s mind, and winced under it.

“I hope you’ll order dinner at once,” Guy continued. “The train was an
hour behind, and Miss Lennox is fearfully tired. I’ll ring myself,” and
he touched the bell rope while Mrs. Seymour was saying something about
being glad to see Miss Lennox, and hoping she was not very tired.

Oh how strange and lonely Magdalen felt, when at last she was alone in
her room for a few moments, while she arranged her hair and made herself
more presentable for dinner! The windows looked out into a dreary court,
and tears sprang to Magdalen’s eyes as she felt the contrast between
these dingy brick walls and that damp, mouldy pavement, and the fresh
green grass and wealth of flowers and shrubbery and forest trees which
for years had been hers to gaze upon. Suppose she was to live at the St.
Denis for years, and to occupy that room into which the sun never
penetrated. And for aught she knew, such was to be her fate. She had
made no inquiries as to where she was to live, whether in city or
country, hotel or private house. Her orders were to come to the St.
Denis, and there she was, and her heart was aching with homesickness,
and a longing to be away,—not at Millbank, but with Roger, wherever he
was. With him was home and happiness and rest, such as Magdalen felt she
should never find again. But it would not do now to indulge in feelings
like these. There was dinner waiting for her, as Guy’s cheery voice
announced outside her door. “Never mind stopping to dress to-night. It
won’t pay, and Aunt Pen don’t expect it. She is dressed enough for
both,” he said; then he went away, and Magdalen heard him whistling a
part of a favorite opera, and felt glad and grateful that at the very
outset of her career she had met Guy Seymour to smooth away the rough
places for her as he was doing in more ways than she knew of, or ever
would know. To him she owed it that she was not left to find her way
alone from the depot to the hotel.

“There is no need of your going for her. People of her class can always
find their way,” his aunt had said to him in the morning, when he asked
what time she expected her _Yankee school-ma’am_ to arrive, saying he
wished to know so as to have nothing in the way of his going up to meet
her.

To his aunt’s suggestion that “people of her class could usually find
their way,” he gave one of his pet whistles, and said,

“How do you know she is one of the ‘people of her class?’ And supposing
she is, she is a woman, and young and possibly good looking, and New
York is an awful place for a young, good-looking woman to land in, an
entire stranger. So, _ma chère_ auntie, I shall meet her just as I
should want some chap of a Guy Seymour to meet my sister if I had one.
And, auntie, I beg of you to unbend a little, and try to make her feel
at home. I’ve no doubt she’ll be as homesick as I was the first time I
ever visited you when I was a boy, and cried so hard to go home that I
vomited up that quart of green gooseberries I had eaten surreptitiously
out in the garden. Do you remember it?

And so kind-hearted Guy had his way, and when he told Magdalen that his
aunt had kept him in a constant worry on her account, he had reference
to a widely different state of affairs from what his words implied and
what he meant they should imply. He had been fighting for her all day
and insisting that if she was a lady she should be treated as a lady,
and when he met her at the depot, he felt that he had been wholly right
in the course he had pursued.

She _was_ a lady, and pretty, too, as nearly as he could judge through
the drab veil which covered her face. The veil was off when she came out
to dinner, and Guy, who met her at the door and conducted her to the
table, started a little to see how beautiful and graceful she was, and
how like a queen she bore herself toward his aunt, who took her in now,
from her black, shining hair to the sweep and cut of her fashionable
travelling dress.

“That is last spring’s style. It must have been made in New York,” was
Mrs. Seymour’s mental comment, and she felt a growing respect for one
whose dress bore so unmistakably the New York stamp upon it.

_She_ was dressed in satin,—soft, French gray satin,—whose heavy folds
stood out from her slender figure and covered up the absence of hoops,
which she never wore. There was a point lace coiffure on her head and
point lace at her throat and wrists, and diamonds on her fat white
hands, and she looked to the full a lady of the high position and blood
which she professed, and she was very kind to Magdalen, albeit there was
a certain stiffness in her manner which would have precluded the
slightest approach to anything like familiarity had Magdalen attempted
it.

Evidently there was something about Magdalen which riveted her
attention, for she omitted no opportunity for looking at her when
Magdalen did not know it, and at certain turns of the head and flashes
of the large, restless eyes which sometimes met hers so suddenly, she
found herself perplexed and bewildered, and wondering when or where she
had seen eyes like these whose glance she did not like to meet, but
which nevertheless kept flashing upon her, and then turning quickly
away. Guy, too, caught now and then a familiar likeness to something
seen before; but it was not in the eyes or the turn of the head,—it was
more in the expression of the mouth and the smile which made Magdalen so
beautiful, while there was something in the tone of her voice like
another voice which in all the world made the sweetest music for him. He
knew of whom Magdalen reminded him, though the faces of the two were no
more alike than a brilliant rose and a fair, white water-lily. Still the
sight of Magdalen and the silvery ring of her voice brought the absent
one very near to him, and made him still kinder and more attentive to
the young girl whose champion he had undertaken to be.

“Is it still your intention to leave New York to-morrow, or will you
give Miss Lennox a day in the city for sight-seeing? I dare say she
would like it better than plunging at once into that solitude of rocks
and hills and running rills,” Guy said to his aunt, who replied: “I had
intended to leave to-morrow. I am beginning to long for the solitude, as
you call it, and unless Miss Lennox is very anxious to see the city—”

“Of course she is. Every young girl wants to see the Park and Broadway
and the picture galleries, especially if she has never been in New York
before. But I beg your pardon, Miss Lennox; for aught I know you were
born here.”

Magdalen had been a close listener to the conversation between the aunt
and nephew, and gathered from it that her destination was the country,
and she was not to live in the noisy city, which would seem so dreary to
her from contrast with the gayeties of last winter, when she was there
under very different auspices. She had no desire to see Broadway, or the
Park, or the pictures. She had seen them all, with Roger as her escort,
and they would look so differently now. So to Mr. Seymour’s suggestion
that she was possibly born in New York, she replied:

“I was here last winter, and saw, I think, all there is worth seeing. I
would rather go at once to ‘the rocks and hills and running rills.’ I
feel most at home with nature.”

She flashed a bright smile on Guy, who felt his blood tingle a little,
while his aunt thought, “I knew her clothes were made in New York;” then
to Magdalen she said, “I have many acquaintances in the city. Possibly
you may have met some of them, if you were _in society_.”

She laid great stress upon the last two words, and Magdalen colored,
while Guy, who saw his aunt’s drift, said laughingly, “Don’t pray drive
Miss Lennox into telling whether she was a belle or a student, copying
some picture, or perfecting herself in music. You’ll be asking next if
she knew the Dagons and Draggons, whom not to know is to be nobody
indeed.”

He spoke sarcastically now, and Magdalen’s face was scarlet, though she
could not help laughing at his allusion to the “Dagons and Draggons”
whom she had met, and so was not lacking in that accomplishment. She
knew it was very natural that Mrs. Seymour should wish to know something
of her antecedents, and she said, “I was _not_ here to copy pictures. I
came with friends, and saw, I suppose, what is called society; at least
I met the _Dagons_ and _Draggons_, if that is any proof. I was
chaperoned by Mrs. Walter Irving, of whom you may have heard.”

“Mrs. Walter Scott Irving, of Lexington avenue,” Mrs. Seymour exclaimed;
“I have heard of her. Are you a relative of hers?”

“No, madam, not a relative. I was adopted by her husband’s half brother,
Mr. Roger Irving, when I was a very little child. He was as kind to me
as if I had been his sister. I have always lived at Millbank, and always
intended to live there until circumstances occurred which made it
desirable for me to seek a home elsewhere and earn my own livelihood.
There was found a later will than the one proven at the time of Squire
Irving’s death, and by virtue of that will Mr. Roger’s nephew, Frank,
came into possession of the estate, and Roger went away, while I
preferred not to be dependent.”

She had told all of her history which it was necessary to tell, and
after a little more conversation she bade her new acquaintance
good-night and retired to her room.

“Well, Guy, what do you think of her?” Mrs. Seymour said, coming to her
nephew’s side.

“I think she’s splendid,” he replied; “but who the deuce is it she looks
like? She has evidently been as delicately brought up as Alice herself.
It’s the finding of that will which has turned her adrift upon the
world, no doubt, and I pity her, for she is every inch a lady; and, Aunt
Pen, don’t for gracious sake put on airs with her, as if you were the
great Mogul, and she some Liliputian. Remember from what a height she
has fallen! Think of her knowing the Dagons and Draggons!”

He was teazing her now, but however much of a scapegrace she might think
him to be, Auntie Pen was pretty sure to consider and follow his advice,
and the next morning she was very polite to Magdalen, and offered of her
own accord to stay another day in New York if she liked, saying Guy
should drive them to the Park, or wherever she wished to go. But
Magdalen longed to be out of the city, and an hour or two after
breakfast the carriage came round to take them to the train.

Mrs. Seymour had not been very communicative with regard to Beechwood,
the place to which they were going. She had said merely that it was on
the Hudson. That it was her niece who was the invalid; that they had
been some years abroad; that the house was very pleasant; that for
certain reasons they saw but little company; and then had asked abruptly
if Miss Lennox was nervous. Guy, who was not to accompany them, had
asked the same question in connection with something he was saying of
Beechwood, but Magdalen did not heed the question then, or attach to it
any importance. She was very anxious to be off, and was glad when, at
last, the car began to move, and she knew she was leaving New York.

It was a warm, still day in early October, and Magdalen enjoyed the ride
along the beautiful river, and was sorry when at last it came to an end,
and she was left standing on the same platform where, years before,
another young girl had stood looking about her, half sadly, half
regretfully, and wishing herself away. It was a different carriage now
which was waiting for the travellers,—a new, stylish carriage, drawn by
two beautiful horses, which would have driven Frank Irving wild, and
John, the coachman, in high-crowned hat and white gloves, was very
deferential to Mrs. Seymour, and touched his hat to Magdalen, and saw
them both into the carriage, and then, closing the door, mounted to his
seat, and started up the mountain road, over which _Alice Grey_ had
ridden many a time, for it was to her that Magdalen was going. She knew
it at last, for as they rode up the mountain side she said to Mrs.
Seymour:

“I do not think you have told me the name of your niece. I have heard
you call her Alice, and that is all I know of her.”

“Surely, you must excuse me,” Mrs. Seymour replied; “I thought I had
told you that her name was Alice Grey. You may have heard of her from
Mr. Irving. We met him abroad, and again in New York.”

“Yes, I have heard of her,” Magdalen replied, her face flushing, and her
heart beating rapidly as she thought of the strange Providence which was
leading her to one of whom she had heard so much, and of whom when a
little girl she had been so jealous.

“Hers is a most lovely character, and you are sure to like her,” Mrs.
Seymour continued. “She has been sorely tried. We are all sorely tried.
You told me, I think, that you were not nervous?”

This was the second time she had put the question to Magdalen, who was
not now quite so certain of her nerves as she had been when the question
was asked her before; but Mrs. Seymour did not wait for an answer, for
just then they came in sight of the house, which she pointed out to
Magdalen, who thought of Millbank as she rode through the handsome
grounds and caught glimpses of the river in the distance. The carriage
stopped at last at a side door, and conducting Magdalen into a little
reception room Mrs. Seymour asked the servant who met them, “where Miss
Grey was?”

Magdalen could not hear the answer, it was so low; but she saw a cloud
on Mrs. Seymour’s brow and divined that something was wrong.

“Show Miss Lennox to her room, the one next to my niece’s,” the lady
said, and Magdalen followed the girl to a large upper room the windows
of which looked out upon the river and the country beyond.

It was very pleasant there, and Magdalen threw off her hat and shawl and
was just seating herself by the window for a better view of the charming
prospect, when there came a gentle knock at her door, and a sweet
musical voice said softly, “Please, may I come in?”




                             CHAPTER XXXV.
                          ALICE AND MAGDALEN.


Magdalen gave one anxious glance at herself in the mirror as she sprang
up, and then hastened to unbolt the door and admit Alice Grey. She knew
it was Alice, though she had never imagined her one half so beautiful as
she seemed now in her white dress, with her chestnut hair falling in
soft curls about her face and neck, and her great dreamy blue eyes,
which had something so pitiful and pleading in their expression. She was
very slight and not as tall as Magdalen, who felt herself a great deal
larger and older than the little, pale-faced girl, whose white cheeks
had in them just the faintest coloring of pink as she held out her hand
and said, “You are Miss Lennox, I know. Auntie wanted me to wait till
she could introduce me, or till you came down to dinner, but I was
anxious to see somebody young and new, and fresh. I go out so little
that I get tired of the faces seen every day.”

“Perhaps you will get tired of mine,” Magdalen suggested, laughingly.

“Perhaps I may, but it will be a long time first,” Alice replied,
leading Magdalen to the window where she could see her more distinctly.

There was an expression of surprise or wonder, or both, in her face now,
as she said, “Where have I met you before, Miss Lennox?”

“I do not think we have ever met before; at least not to my knowledge,”
Magdalen replied, while Alice continued:

“I must have seen you or somebody like you. I can’t be mistaken in those
eyes. Why, they are like—”

Alice stopped suddenly, and the color all faded from her cheeks and
lips, while Magdalen looked curiously at her.

“You’ve never been abroad?” Alice asked, after a moment, during which
she had studied Magdalen closely.

“Never,” was the reply, and Alice continued:

“And I have been away seven years, and so it cannot be; but you do not
seem a stranger, and I am so glad. I opposed your coming at first,—that
is, I was opposed to having any one come just to entertain me, and when
auntie wrote from New York that she had engaged a Miss Lennox, I saw you
directly, some tall, lank, ugly woman, who wore glasses and would bore
me terribly.”

“Do I come up to your ideal,” Magdalen asked, her heart warming more and
more toward the young girl, who replied:

“You are seeking for a compliment, for of course you know just how
beautiful and brilliant and sparkling you are; only that sudden turn of
your head and flash of your eyes does bother me so. And you are young,
too. As young as I am, I guess. I am twenty-one.”

“And I am nineteen,” Magdalen rejoined, while Alice exclaimed:

“Only nineteen! That _is_ young to be doing for one’s self; young to
come here, to care for me, in _this_ house.”

She seemed to be talking in an absent kind of way, and her eyes, which
were looking far off across the river, had in them a sad, sorry
expression, as if to care for _her_, in _that_ house, was a lot not to
be envied. Turning suddenly to Magdalen, she asked: “_Are you nervous,
Miss Lennox?_”

That was the fourth time this question had been put to Magdalen, who
laughed a little hysterically as she replied:

“I never supposed I was, but fear I shall be if questioned again upon
the subject. Your aunt asked me twice if I was nervous, and Mr. Guy
Seymour once.”

As she said the last name, Alice colored a little, but she merely
answered:

“You saw cousin Guy in New York; auntie’s husband was his uncle, but I
call him cousin just the same. Did he say when he was coming to
Beechwood?”

“At Christmas, I believe,” Magdalen replied, wondering that Alice paid
no heed to what she had said of her nervousness.

She was standing with her hands clasped, and the same expression in her
eyes which Magdalen had observed before. She was evidently thinking of
something foreign to Guy Seymour, or nervousness, and she stood thus
until Magdalen heard in the hall outside the opening of a door, and
caught the faintest possible sound like a human cry. She might not have
noticed it at all but for the effect it had on Alice, who started
suddenly from her dreamy attitude, and said:

“I must go now, Miss Lennox. I shall see you at dinner, which will be
served in an hour. I am so glad you have come to me. I feel stronger
with you already,—feel as if you would do me good,—do us all good,
perhaps. _Au revoir_, till dinner time.”

She flitted from the room, and Magdalen heard again the quick closing of
a door down the hall. Then all was still, and the house was as silent as
if she were its only occupant. It had not occurred to her that there was
any mystery at Beechwood, any grief or shame which the family tried to
cover up, but the moment Alice was gone she felt a weight settling down
upon her, a feeling of loneliness and desolation, which she called
homesickness, and burying her face among the pillows of the
tempting-looking bed, she wept bitterly for a few moments. Then,
remembering dinner, she dried her eyes and commenced unpacking her
trunks, which had been sent up while Alice was with her.

“I shall not be expected to dress much. This will do very nicely,” she
thought, as she shook out the folds of a heavy black silk, made the
winter before by Mrs. Irving’s dressmaker.

It was trimmed with the softest, daintiest lace, for everything
pertaining to her wardrobe had been perfect, and she looked fit to grace
any assemblage when at last Alice came to take her down to the parlor,
where Arthur Grey was waiting for them.




                             CHAPTER XXXVI.
                         MR. GREY AND MAGDALEN.


Mr. Grey had heard from his sister that Magdalen came from Millbank,
where she had lived in the Irving family until the finding of the will,
and for a few moments he had felt as if he could not have her there at
Beechwood, recalling by her presence what he would so gladly have
forgotten. Why was it that the Irvings, or some one connected with them,
were always crossing his path. Surely he had been sufficiently punished
for poor Jessie’s death. His most implacable enemy could have asked no
greater sorrow for him than he had experienced for years, save at times
when in foreign scenes he forgot in part the horror and the burden which
since his return to America had pressed heavier than before.

“The girl is a lady and very handsome too, though of a far different
style from Alice. I hope you will try to like her, Arthur,” his sister
had said to him, as she saw a shadow on his face and felt that in some
way he was displeased.

“Of course I can have nothing against the girl,” Mr. Grey replied,
“though there are reasons why any thing connected with the Irvings
should be distasteful to me, and I would rather Miss Lennox had come
from some other family.”

He left his sister then, and went to his own room, where on the wall was
still hanging that little pencil sketch of the graveyard in Belvidere,
and the barefoot girl standing in the grass with the basket of flowers
on her arm. That Miss Lennox was the original of that picture, Mr. Grey
did not doubt. She had told him that her name was Magdalen, and that she
had always lived at Millbank, so there could be no mistake. He had
scarcely thought of that incident for years, but it came back to him now
and struck him as very strange that this same barefoot girl should have
come there as companion to his daughter.

“Should she ever enter this room, and there’s no knowing where Alice may
take her, she will see this picture and recognize it at once, and wonder
where I found it and possibly recognize me as the stranger who talked
with her in the graveyard. It is better out of sight,” he said, as he
took the drawing from the wall and laid it away in the drawer where the
lock of golden hair was, and the faded bouquet which the “wretch of a
Jim Bartlett” once had the credit of stealing. And all this time the man
trod softly, as if fearful of being heard and called for, and he looked
often toward the door which opened into the adjoining room. But
everything was still; the _Burden_ was sleeping at last, lulled into
quiet by the sweet music of “Allie’s” voice and the touch of “Allie’s”
hands.

Having put the picture away, Mr. Grey made himself ready for dinner, and
then going down to the parlor, he stood before the grate, waiting for
his daughter and Miss Lennox. The door was open into the hall, and he
saw them as they came, with their arms interlaced, and Magdalen’s head
bent towards Alice, who was smiling up at her.

“Strong friendship at once,” he thought, feeling for a moment vexed that
his high-bred daughter, should so soon have fallen in love with her
hired companion.

But this emotion of pride passed away forever with Mr. Grey’s first full
inspection of Magdalen Lennox, whose brilliant beauty startled and
surprised him, and whose bright, restless eyes confounded and bewildered
him, carrying him back to the Schodick hills, and the orchard where the
apple blossoms were growing. But not there could he find the solution of
the strange feeling which swept over him and kept him silent, even after
Alice had introduced her friend.

“Miss Lennox, father,” Alice said, a second time, and then he came to
himself, and said, “Excuse me, Miss Lennox, something about you, as you
came in, sent me off into the fields of memory, in quest of some one who
must have been like you. You are very welcome to Beechwood, and I am
glad to see you here.”

With a courtly grace he offered her his arm, and led her to the
dining-room, followed by Alice and his sister, both of whom were
delighted to see him take so kindly to a stranger.

To Mrs. Seymour it showed an acknowledgment on his part of her good
taste and judgment in selecting so fitting a person for Alice’s
companion, and a willingness to follow her advice, and make the best of
it, even if Miss Lennox was connected with the Irvings. _She_ knew
something of Jessie’s story. She saw her once in Schodick, and she had
done what she could to separate her brother from her, but she did not
know of the tragic ending, and she gave no thought to the poor, drowned
woman, who, all through the formal dinner, was so constantly in
Magdalen’s mind. She had at once identified Mr. Grey with the stranger
in Belvidere, though he seemed older than she had thought him then.
Still, there was no mistaking him, and when his sister casually
addressed him as “Arthur,” it came over her, with a great shock, that
this man was none other than the “Arthur Grey” who had been poor
Jessie’s ruin, and whom Roger hated so cordially. There could be no
mistake; she was positive that she was right in her conclusions, and
felt for a moment as if she were smothering. What strange fatality was
it which had brought her into the very household of the man she had
hated, for Roger’s sake, and longed to see that she might tell him so.
She _had_ seen him, at last! he was there, at her side, speaking to her
so kindly, and making her feel so much at home, that she could _not_
hate him, and before dinner was over she had ceased to wonder at
Jessie’s infatuation, or to blame her for listening to him. He was very
polite to her, but seemed to be studying her face as intently as Alice
had done at first, and once, when she poised her head upon one side,
while her eyes flashed suddenly upon him, and then were quickly
withdrawn, the blood came rushing to his face and crept up under his
hair, for he knew now of whom that motion reminded him. He had thought
it so charming once, and the eyes which shone upon him as Magdalen’s did
had been so beautiful, and soft, and liquid, and given no sign of the
fierce wildness with which they had many a time glared on him since.

“It is only a resemblance, but I would rather it did not exist,” he
thought, as he met that look again, and shivered as if he was cold.

Dinner being over they returned to the parlor, where, at Alice’s
request, Magdalen seated herself at the piano. Her homesickness was
passing away, and she no longer felt that a nightmare was oppressing
her, but rather that she should find at Beechwood peace and quiet and a
home, and she sang with her whole soul, and did not hear the sound
outside, which caught Alice’s attention so quickly, and took her from
the room. She knew, however, when Alice went out, and a moment after was
conscious of some confusion by the door, and heard Alice’s voice, first
in expostulation and entreaty, then calling hurriedly for her father to
come. Then Mr. Grey went out, and Mrs. Seymour was left alone with
Magdalen, who finished her song and left the piano, wondering what it
was which had taken both Mr. Grey and Alice so suddenly from the room,
and kept them away for half an hour or more. Indeed, Mr. Grey did not
return at all, and when, at last, Alice came back, she was very white,
and said something to her aunt, which sounded like, “It was the music,
which affected her, I think.”

Was there a mystery at Beechwood, Magdalen thought; a something hidden
from view, and was it this which made Alice look so sad even while she
tried to smile, and appear gay and cheerful, by way of entertaining her
new friend?

They had the parlor to themselves ere long, for Mrs. Seymour went out,
and then Alice took her seat on the couch, where Magdalen was sitting,
and nestled close to her, as a child nestles to its mother when it is
tired and wants to be soothed.

Passing her arm around the slender waist, Magdalen drew the curly head
down on her bosom, and gently smoothed the chestnut hair, and passed her
hand caressingly across the forehead, where the blue veins showed so
plainly.

Magdalen was not given to sudden friendships, and she could not account
for the love and tenderness she felt growing so fast within her for this
young girl, who lay encircled in her arms, and who she knew at last was
crying, for she felt the hot tears dropping on her hand. She could not
offer sympathy in words, for she did not know what to say, but she
stooped and kissed the flushed cheek wet with tears. Alice understood
her, and the silent crying became a low, piteous sobbing, which told how
keenly her heart was wrung.

“Pray excuse me, for giving way so foolishly,” Alice said at last, as
she lifted up her head. “I was ill so long in Europe, and the voyage
home was rough and stormy, and I kept my berth the entire two weeks we
were out at sea, so that by the time New York was reached I could not
stand alone. I am better now; home scenes and mountain air have done me
good, but—but—oh, Miss Lennox, I cannot tell you now of the shadow which
has cast a gloom over my whole life. Why, I have seen the time when my
beautiful home had scarcely a charm for me, and in my wickedness I
accused God of dealing too harshly with me. But He has been so good to
me, who do not deserve kindness from Him. When I knew you were coming I
went away among the hills and prayed that I might like you,—that your
presence would do me good,—and I am certain the prayer was answered. I
do like you. I feel a firm conviction that in some way you are destined
to do us all an untold good. You do not seem like a stranger, but rather
like a familiar friend, or I should not be talking to you as I am. Have
you sisters, Miss Lennox?”

The moment which Magdalen dreaded had come, when she was to be
questioned by Alice with regard to her family, and she resolved to be
perfectly frank, and keep nothing back which it was proper for her to
tell.

“I have no sisters that I am aware of,” she said. “I was adopted, when a
little baby, by Mr. Roger Irving, who lived at Millbank, and was himself
a boy then. The circumstances of my adoption were very peculiar, and
such as precluded the possibility of my knowing anything of my family
friends, if I had any. I have never known a sister’s love or a
brother’s, or a father’s or mother’s, though I have been as kindly and
tenderly cared for as if I had been the petted child of fond parents,
and only an adverse turn in the wheel of fortune sent me from the home I
loved so much.”

She paused here, and Alice rejoined, “Mr. Irving? Millbank? Why, both
are familiar names to me, and have been since I was a little girl at
school in New Haven and knew Mr. Franklin Irving. And _you_,—why, yes,—”
and Alice’s manner grew more and more excited, “you are the very
Magdalen Frank used to tell me about and of whom I was sometimes
jealous. You know Frank,” she continued, misconstruing the expression of
Magdalen’s face.

“Yes, I know Frank,” Magdalen replied, “and I, too, have heard a great
deal of _you_, and was jealous of you at one time, I believe.”

“You had no cause,” Alice replied, thinking of the “Piccola Sentinella,”
rather than of New Haven; “I liked Mr. Irving very much as a boy, and
when we met him abroad I was very glad to see him and rather encouraged
his visits than otherwise, but father disliked him thoroughly, or seemed
to, and treated him so cavalierly that I wondered he could come to us at
all. But he did, and then father took me away, and I saw Mr. Irving no
more till he called upon me in New York. I was sick then and did not go
out, but I heard of a Miss Lennox who was with the Irvings and said to
be very beautiful, and that was you.”

“I was with the Irvings,” Magdalen replied, and Alice continued: “I
fancied, then, that Mr. Irving would eventually marry you and speculated
a good deal upon the matter. It seems so funny that _you_ are _here_! I
do not understand it at all, or why you should leave Millbank. Mr. Frank
Irving is the heir now, is he not?”

Magdalen hesitated a moment, and then thinking it better to do so, told
briefly of her life at Millbank until that luckless day when she
discovered the will.

“After that Roger went to Schodick,” she said, “and I—I might have
stayed there, but I did not like Mrs. Irving’s manner towards me when
she became the mistress, and I could not be dependent upon Frank, and so
I came away.”

Alice knew that Magdalen was withholding something from her, and with a
woman’s wit guessed that it concerned Frank; but she would not question
her, and turned the conversation into another channel, and talked of the
books she had read and the authors she liked best.

It was comparatively early when Magdalen went up to her room, a door of
which communicated with Alice’s. This the latter desired should stand
open.

“I like to feel that some one is near me when I wake in the night, as I
often do,” Alice said, and then she added, “I shall be obliged to leave
you for a time, but do you go straight to bed. I know you must be tired.
I shall come in so softly that you will not hear me. Good-night.”

She kissed Magdalen and then went from the room and down the hall toward
the door, which Magdalen had heard open and shut so many times. Magdalen
_was_ very tired, and was soon sleeping so soundly that she did not hear
Alice when she came back, but she dreamed there were angels with her
clad in white, and with a start she woke to find the moonlight streaming
into her chamber, and making it so light that she could see distinctly
the young girl in the adjoining room was kneeling by the bed, her hands
clasped together and her upturned face bathed in the silvery light,
which made it like the face of an angel. She was praying softly, and in
the deep stillness of the night every whisper was audible to Magdalen,
who heard her asking Heaven for strength to bear the _burden_ patiently,
and never to get tired and weary and wish it somewhere else. Then the
nature of the prayer changed, and Magdalen knew that Alice was thanking
Heaven for sending her to Beechwood. “And if anywhere in the world there
are still living the friends she has never known, oh, Father, let her
find them, especially her mother,—it is so terrible to have no mother.”

That was what Alice said, and Magdalen’s tears fell like rain to hear
this young girl pleading for her as she had never pleaded for herself.
She had prayed, it is true. She always prayed both morning and at night,
but they were mere formal prayers, and not at all like Alice’s. Hers
were earnest, hers were heartfelt, and Magdalen knew that she was
speaking to a real, living presence; that the Saviour to whom she talked
was there with her in the moonlit room as really as if she saw him
bodily. Alice’s was a living faith, which brought Heaven down to her
side, and Magdalen felt that there _were_ indeed angels abiding round
about her, and that Alice was one of them.




                            CHAPTER XXXVII.
                           LIFE AT BEECHWOOD.


The next morning was bright and beautiful, as mornings in early October
often are, when the summer seems to linger amid flower and shrub, as if
loth to quit the glories its own sunshine and showers had created.

The mist still lay in soft clouds upon the river and on the mountain
sides, when Magdalen arose, and, leaning from her window, drank in the
bracing morning air, and acknowledged to herself that Beechwood was
almost as beautiful as Millbank. She had slept quietly, and felt her old
life and vigor coming back to her again as she hastened to dress
herself.

She had heard no sound as yet, except the tread of a servant in the
yard, and the baying of the Newfoundland dog up the mountain path.

Alice was not in her own room. She must have dressed and gone out before
Magdalen awoke, and the latter was hesitating whether to go down to the
parlor, or to remain where she was, when Alice appeared, her blue eyes
shining brightly, and a faint flush upon her cheek.

“I slept _so_ well because you were here near me,” she said as she
linked her arm in Magdalen’s, and started for the dining-room.

As they passed through the hall, Magdalen noticed at the farther
extremity a green baize door, which seemed to divide that part of the
hall from the other, and which she knew by the location was the door
which she had heard shut so many times. Where did it lead to? What was
there behind it? What embodiment of sorrow and pain was hidden away in
that portion of the building? That there was _somebody_ there, Magdalen
was sure; for, just as she reached the head of the stairs she saw a
servant girl coming up a side staircase, bearing in her arms a silver
tray, on which was arranged a tempting breakfast for an invalid.

“I shall know all in good time,” she thought, and she pretended not to
see the girl, and kept on talking to Alice until the dining-room was
reached, where Mr. Grey and his sister were waiting for them. Both
seemed in unusually good spirits, and Mr. Grey kissed his daughter
fondly as she nestled close to him and smiled up into his face with all
the love of a trusting, affectionate daughter. The sight for a moment
smote Magdalen with a keen sense of desolation and loneliness. Never had
she known,—never could know the happiness of a father’s watchful love
and care, and never had she felt its loss as keenly as she felt it now,
when she saw the caressing tenderness which Mr. Grey bestowed upon his
daughter and the eagerness with which it was returned. They were both
very kind to her, and treated her more like a guest than one who had
come to them as a hired companion.

It was a delightful day for driving; and after breakfast was over, Alice
asked for the carriage and took Magdalen to all her favorite resorts,
down by the river and up among the hills, where she said she often went
and sat for hours alone. They were firmer friends than ever before that
drive was over, and Alice had dropped “Miss Lennox” for the more
familiar “Magdalen,” and had asked that she should be simply “Alice,”
and not that formal “Miss Grey.”

That afternoon Magdalen wrote a short letter to Hester Floyd, telling
her where she was, explaining how she chanced to be there, and going
into ecstasies over the loveliness and beauty of Alice Grey, but never
hinting at Mr. Grey’s identity with the man who had tempted Jessie to
sin. It was as well to keep that to herself, she thought, inasmuch as
the telling it would only awaken bitter memories in Rogers heart. Once
she determined not to speak of Roger at all, but that would be too
marked a neglect, and so she asked to be remembered to him, and said she
should never forget his kindness to her, or cease to regret the
meddlesome curiosity which had resulted so disastrously for him. She
made no mention of either Mrs. Walter Scott or Frank. She merely said
she left Millbank at such a time, and expressed herself as glad to get
away, it seemed so changed from the happy home it used to be in other
days.

“Mrs. Hester Floyd. Care of Roger Irving, Esq., Schodick, N. H.,” was
the direction of the letter which Magdalen gave to Mr. Grey, who was
going to the post-office and offered to take it for her. Very narrowly
she watched him as he glanced at the superscription, and she half pitied
him when she saw his lips quiver and turn pale for a moment as he read
the name of a place which he remembered so well. Once in his life _he_
had sent letters to that very town, and the Schodick post-mark was not
an unfamiliar one to him. Now she to whom he had written was dead, and
he held a letter directed to the care of her son. How he longed to ask
something concerning him, and finally he did so, saying in a half
indifferent tone, “Schodick?—I once spent a summer there, and I have
heard of Mr. Irving. Does he live in the village?”

“No, sir, he lives at his mother’s old home. They call it the Morton
farm. Did you know his mother, Jessie Morton?”

Magdalen put the question purposely, but regretted it when she saw the
look of intense pain which flitted across Mr. Grey’s face.

“I knew her, yes. She was the most beautiful woman I ever saw,” he
replied, and then he turned away and walked slowly from the room with
his head bent down, as if his thoughts were busy with the past.

The days succeeding that first one at Beechwood went rapidly by, and
each one found Magdalen happier and more contented with her situation as
companion of Alice, who strove in so many ways to make her feel that she
was in all respects her equal, instead of a person hired to minister to
her. Indeed, the hired part seemed only nominal, for nothing was ever
required of Magdalen which would not have been required of her had she
been a daughter of the house and Alice her invalid sister. They rode
together, and walked together, and read together, and slept together at
last, for Alice would have it so, and every morning of her life Magdalen
was awakened by the soft touch of Alice’s hand upon her cheek, and the
kiss upon her brow.

To Magdalen this was a new and blissful experience. At Millbank she had
always been alone, so far as girls of her own age were concerned, and
Alice Grey seemed to her the embodiment of all that was pure and
beautiful, and she loved her with a devotion that sometimes startled
herself with its intenseness. The mystery, if there was one, was very
quiet now, and though Alice went often down the hall and through the
green baize door, she never looked as sad and tired when she came back
as she had done on that first day at Beechwood. Mr. Grey, too,
frequently passed the entire evening with the young girls in the parlor,
where Magdalen, who was a very fine reader, read to them aloud from
Alice’s favorite authors. But after the first night she was never asked
to _sing_. Alice often requested her to play, and they had learned a few
duets which they practised together, but songs were never mentioned, and
Magdalen would have fancied that there was something disagreeable in her
voice were it not that when alone with Alice among the hills and down by
the river, whither they often went, her companion always insisted upon
her singing, and would sit listening to her as if spellbound by the
clear, liquid tones.

At last there came a letter from Hester Floyd, who, in her
characteristic way, expressed herself as pleased that Magdalen “had grit
enough to cut loose from the whole coboodle at Millbank, and go to do
for herself. I was some taken aback,” she wrote, “for I s’posed by the
tell that you was to marry that pimpin, white-faced Frank, and I must
say you showed your good sense by quittin’ him, and doin’ for yourself.
Me and Roger would have been glad for you to come here; that is, I
_b’leeve_ Roger would, though he never sed nothin’ particklar. He’s some
altered, and don’t talk so much, nor ’pear so chipper as he used to do,
and I mistrust he misses _you_ more’n he does his money. He’s a good
deal looked up to, both in the town and in the church, where they’ve
made him a vestryman in place of a man who died, and ’twould seem as if
he’d met with a change, though he allus was a good man, with no bad
habits; but he’s different like now, and don’t read newspapers Sunday,
nor let me get up an extra dinner, and he has family prayers, which is
all well enuff, only bakin’ mornins it does hender some.”

Then followed a description of the house and Schodick generally, and
then a break of two days or more, after which the old lady resumed her
pen, and added: “Roger’s got a letter from Frank, askin’ if he knew
where you was. He said you left while he was away unbeknownst to him,
and had never writ a word, by which I take it you and he ain’t on the
fust ratest terms. Roger talked the most that day that he has in a
month, and actually whistled, but then he’d just gained a suit, and so
mabby it was that, though I b’leeve it wouldn’t do no harm if you were
to drop him a line in a friendly way. It’s leap year, you know.”

This was Hester’s letter, over which Magdalen pondered long, wondering
if the old lady could have suspected her love for Roger, and how far she
was right in thinking he missed her more than his money. Magdalen read
that sentence many times, and her heart thrilled with delight at the
thought of being missed by Roger; but from Hester’s suggestion that she
should write him a friendly line, she turned resolutely away. The time
was gone by when she could write to Roger without his having first
written to her. After that interview in the library, when his kisses had
burned into her heart, and his passionate words, “Magda, my darling,”
had burned into her memory, she would be less than a woman to make the
first advances. Concessions, if there were any, must come from him now.
He knew how sorry she was about the will; he had exonerated her from all
blame in that matter, and now, if he had any stronger feelings for her
than that of a friend, he must make it manifest. This was Magdalen’s
reasoning over the Roger portion of Hester’s letter, and then she
thought of Frank, and felt a nervous dread lest he might follow her,
though that seemed hardly possible, even if he knew where she was. Still
he would undoubtedly write as soon as he could get her address from
Roger, and she was not at all disappointed when, a week or two after the
receipt of Hester’s letter, Mr. Grey brought her one from Belvidere,
directed in Frank’s well known handwriting. After obtaining her address
he had written at once, chiding her for having left so suddenly without
a word for him, and begging of her to return, or at least allow him to
come for her, and take her back to her rightful place at Millbank.

“I can’t imagine what freak of fortune led you to the Greys,” he wrote.
“It is the last place where I could wish you to be. Not that I do not
respect and esteem Miss Grey as the sweetest, loveliest of women, but I
distrust both her father and her aunt. For some reason they have never
seemed to like me, and may say things derogatory of me; but if they do,
I trust it will make no difference with you, for remember _you_ have
known me all your lifetime.”

Magdalen wrote next day to Frank, who, as he read her letter, began for
the first time to feel absolutely that she was lost to him forever. He
was sure of that, and for a moment he wept like a child, thinking how
gladly he would give up all his money if that would bring him Magdalen’s
love. But it was not in his nature to be unhappy long, and he soon dried
his eyes and consoled himself with a drive after his fast bays, and in
the evening when his mother mentioned to him the names of two or three
young ladies from New York who were coming to Millbank for the holidays,
and asked if there was any one in particular whom he wished to invite,
he mentioned Miss Burleigh, whom he had met in Springfield. And so Bell
was invited, and hastened to reply that she should be delighted to come,
but feared she could not, as “pa never liked to be separated from his
family at that time, and sister Grace would be home from school, and
could not, of course, be left behind.” She was so sorry, for she had
heard such glowing accounts of Millbank, and its graceful mistress, that
she ardently desired to see and know both, but as it was she must
decline.

As might be supposed, the invitation to Miss Bell Burleigh was repeated,
including this time the Judge and Grace, both of whom accepted, Grace
for the entire holidays, and the Judge for a day or two, as he did not
wish to crowd. And so Christmas bade fair to be kept at Millbank with
more hilarity than ever it had been before. Every room was to be
occupied, Bell and Grace Burleigh taking Magdalen’s, for which Frank
ordered a new and expensive carpet and chamber set, just as he had
ordered new furniture for many of the other rooms. He was living on a
grand scale, and had his income been what his principal was he could
scarcely have been more munificent or lavish of his money. He was at the
head of every charitable object in Belvidere and Springfield, and gave
so largely that his name was frequently in the papers which he sent to
Magdalen, with his pencil mark about the flattering notices; and
Magdalen smiled quietly as she read them and then showed them to Alice,
who once laughingly remarked, “Suppose you refer him to Matthew vi. 2.
It might be of some benefit to him.” And that was all the good Frank’s
ostentatious charity did him in that direction.

Meantime the tide of life moved on, and Christmas came, and the invited
guests arrived at Millbank, where there were such revellings and
dissipations as the people of Belvidere had never seen, and where Bell
Burleigh’s bold, black eyes flashed and sparkled and took in everything,
and saw so many places where a change would be desirable should Millbank
ever have another mistress than Mrs. Walter Scott.

Guy Seymour, too, had his holidays at Beechwood, which seemed a
different place with his great, kind heart, his quick appreciation of
another’s wants, his unfailing wit and humor, his merry whistle and
exhilarating laugh, his good-natured teasing of Auntie Pen, and his
entire devotion to Alice, who was rather reserved toward him, but who
talked a great deal of him to Magdalen when they were alone, and _cried_
when at last he went away.




                            CHAPTER XXXVIII.
                       THE MYSTERY AT BEECHWOOD.


A day or two after Guy’s return to New York there came to Beechwood a
tall, muscular-looking woman, whom Alice called Mrs. Jenks, and for whom
Magdalen could see no possible use. She did not consort with the family,
nor with the servants, and Magdalen often met her in the upper hall, and
saw her disappearing through the green baize door. It was about this
time, too, that Mr. Grey left home for Cincinnati, and the household
settled down into a state of quiet and loneliness, which, contrasting as
it did with the merry holidays when Guy Seymour was there, seemed to
both girls very hard to bear.

Alice was unusually restless, and when at last Guy wrote telling of a
famous singer who had just appeared in New York, and asking them all to
come down for a few days and hear for themselves, she caught eagerly at
it, and overruling every objection, won her aunt’s consent to going.
Magdalen was to accompany them, and she was anticipating the trip and
what it might bring about, for Hester Floyd had written that _Roger_ was
in New York. But when the morning fixed upon for their journey came she
was suffering with a prevailing influenza which made the trip impossible
for her. She, however, insisted upon Alice’s going without her, and so
for a few days she was left alone in the house so far as congenial
companionship was concerned. Mrs. Jenks she never saw, though she knew
she was there; for as she grew better and able to be about the parlors
and library she heard the servants speak of the amount of _wine_ she
ordered with her dinner, while one of them added in a whisper, “Suppose
she should get drunk and there should be a row, wouldn’t we be in a
pretty mess. Nobody could control her.”

Magdalen was not timid, but after this she kept her door locked at
night, while during the day she frequently caught herself listening
intently as if expecting something to happen. But nothing did happen
until one night when she went as usual to the parlor, where she sat down
to the piano and tried a new piece of music which Guy had sent to Alice.
Finding it rather difficult, she cast it aside and dashed off something
more familiar to her. On the music stand were piles and piles of songs,
some her own, some Alice’s, and she looked them over, and selecting one
which had always been her favorite, she began to sing, feeling much as
an imprisoned bird must feel when it finds itself free again, for since
her first night at Beechwood she had never been asked to sing with the
piano. Now, however, she was alone, and she sang on and on, her voice,
which had been out of practice so long, gathering strength and sweetness
until the whole house was full of the clear, liquid tones, and the
servants, still dawdling over their supper, commented upon the music and
held their breath to listen. One of them had brought a lamp into the
room before going to her tea, and this with the fire in the grate was
all the light there was; but it answered every purpose for Magdalen, who
enjoyed the dim twilight and the flickering shadows on the wall, and
kept on with her singing, while through the upper hall there came
stealing softly the figure of a woman with her white night dress
trailing on the carpet, and her bare feet giving back no echo to her
stealthy footsteps. She had come through the green baize door, and she
paused there a moment and turned her ear in the direction whence she had
come. But all was quiet. There was no one watching her, and with a
cunning gleam in her restless, black eyes, she shut the door softly,
then opened it again, and went back down the long hall until she reached
a door which was partly ajar. This she also shut, and turning the key
took it in her hand and started again for the music which had set her
poor brain to throbbing, and quickened the blood in her veins until
every nerve was quivering with excitement.

“I am coming, oh, I’m coming. Don’t you hear me as I come?” sang
Magdalen, while down the stairs and through the hall came the unseen
visitor until she reached the parlor door, where she stood for a moment
in the attitude of listening, while her eyes were fixed upon Magdalen
with a curious, inquiring look.

Then they rolled restlessly about the room, and took in every thing from
the picture on the wall to the fire in the grate, and then went back
again to the young girl, still singing her song of summer. The music
evidently had a soothing effect upon the poor, crazed creature, and her
eyes were soft and pleasant and moist with tears as she drew near to
Magdalen, who at last felt the hot breath upon her neck, and knew there
was some one behind her. There was a violent start, then a sudden crash
among the keys, as Magdalen felt not only the breath, but the touch of
the long, white fingers, which clasped her shoulder so firmly. She could
see the fingers as they held to her dress, but only the outline of a
human form was visible, and so she did not scream until she turned her
head and saw the white-robed woman, with the long hair falling down her
back, the peculiar look of insanity in every feature. Then a shriek,
loud and unearthly, rang through the house, followed by another and
still another, as she felt the woman’s arm twining itself around her
neck, and heard the woman’s voice saying to her, “What are you, angel or
devil, that you can move me so?”

Roused by the terrific shrieks, the servants came rushing to the parlor,
where they found Magdalen fainted entirely away, with the maniac bending
over her and peering into her face. When Magdalen came to herself, she
was in her own room, and the girl, Honora, who waited on her in the
absence of Pauline, was sitting by and caring for her. She did not seem
inclined to talk, and to Magdalen’s inquiries, “Oh, what was it, and
shall I see it again?” she merely replied, “You’ll not be troubled any
more. It was the fault of Mrs. Jenks. She drank half a bottle of wine
since noon and is drunk as a beast.”

That was all the explanation Magdalen could get, and as she recovered
rapidly from the effects of her fainting fit, she signified her wish to
be left alone; but she did not venture to the parlor again that night,
and she saw that both the doors leading from her room and Alice’s into
the hall were locked, and bolted, too. Then she tried to reason herself
into a tolerable degree of calmness and quiet, as she thought over the
events of the evening and wondered who the maniac was.

“Alice’s mother, most likely,” she said, and a great throb of pity swept
over her for the young girl whose life had been so darkened and who had
possibly never known a mother’s love any more than she herself had done.

And then her thoughts went out after her own mother, with a longing
desire such as she had seldom felt. Where was she that wintry night? Was
she far from or was she near to the daughter who had never seen her face
to remember it? Was she living still, or was the snow piled upon her
grave, and would not Magdalen rather have her thus than like the
babbling maniac who had startled her so in the parlor? She believed she
would. In one sense Alice was more to be pitied than herself, and she
sat thinking of the young girl and the shadow on her life until the fire
burned out upon the hearth, and she crept shivering to bed. But not to
sleep. She could not do that for the peculiar cry, half human, half
unearthly, which from time to time kept coming to her ears, and in which
she recognized tones like the voice heard an instant in the parlor
before consciousness forsook her. There was evidently a great commotion
throughout the house, the servants running to and fro; but no one came
near her until the early dawn was stealing into the room, and giving
definite shapes and forms to the objects about her. Then there was a tap
at her door, and Honora’s voice said:

“Miss Lennox, will you come with me and see what you can do to quiet
her? She’s kept screeching for you all night, and Mrs. Jenks, who is in
her senses now, says maybe you can influence her. Strangers sometimes
do. I’ll wait outside till you are ready. You needn’t be afraid,—she
never hurt any body.”

Magdalen trembled in every joint, and her teeth fairly chattered as she
hastened to dress herself.

“It’s because I’m cold; there certainly is nothing to fear,” she
thought, as she bound her hair under a net and knotted her dressing-gown
around her waist.

She had never been through the baize door, and as Honora held it for her
to pass she felt for a moment as if trespassing upon forbidden ground.
But the door swung to behind her. She was shut into a narrow hall, with
two doors on the right hand side, and one of them ajar. The mystery she
was going to confront was beyond that door, she knew, for a moaning cry
of “Let me go to her, I tell you,” met her ear, and made her draw a
little closer to Honora, who said to her, reassuringly, “There is
nothing to fear; she is perfectly harmless.”

“Yes; but tell me, please, who it is,” Magdalen said, clutching the arm
of the girl, who replied:

“Oh, I supposed you knew. It is _Mrs. Grey_.”

Magdalen’s conjectures were correct, and she went fearlessly up to the
door, which Honora opened wide and then shut behind her, leaving her
standing just across the threshold in the room which held the Mystery at
Beechwood.




                             CHAPTER XXXIX.
                       MAGDALEN AND THE MYSTERY.


A mystery no longer, but a living, breathing, panting woman, with wild,
rolling eyes, masses of jet-black hair streaked with gray streaming down
her back, and long white arms and hands, which beat the air helplessly
as she tried to escape from the firm grasp of her attendant, Mrs. Jenks.
It was Magdalen’s first close contact with a maniac, and she drew back a
step or two, appalled by the wild outcry with which the woman greeted
her, and the desperate spring she made toward the spot where she was
standing. For an instant she was tempted to flee from the room, but Mrs.
Jenks had her patient under control by virtue of superior strength.
There was no escaping from the vice-like grasp of her strong arms, and
so Magdalen stood still and gazed spellbound upon the terrible
spectacle.

“Come nearer and see what effect your speaking to her will have. She has
asked for you all night; she will not hurt you,” Mrs. Jenks said, and
Magdalen went up to the poor, restless, tossing creature, and sitting
down upon the bed took in her own the hot hand which was extended toward
her.

“Can I do anything for you, Mrs. Grey?” she said, softly caressing the
wasted hand which held hers so tightly.

Quick as lightning a gleam of anger shot from the black eyes as the
woman replied:

“Don’t insult _me_ by calling me _Mrs. Grey_. That name has been a curse
to me from the moment I bore it. Call me _Laura_, or nothing!”

“Well, then, Laura, can I do anything to make you better?” Magdalen
said, and the woman replied, “Yes, stay with me always, and sing as you
did last night when I thought the angels called me; and put your hand on
my head;—feel how hot it is. There is a lost baby’s soul in there,
burning up for my sin.”

She carried Magdalen’s hand to her forehead, which was hot with fever
and excitement, and Magdalen could feel the blood throbbing through the
swollen veins.

“Poor Laura,” she said, “poor, sick woman! I am so sorry for you. I
would have come before if I had known you wanted me.”

“Yes but don’t waste time in words. I’ve had a plenty of those all my
life. Sing! sing! sing!—that is what I want,” interrupted the crazy
woman, and sitting on the bed, with the hot hand grasping hers, Magdalen
tried to think what she could sing that would soothe her excited
patient.

There was a trembling in her joints and a choking sensation in her
throat which seemed to preclude the possibility of her singing, but she
made a great effort to control herself, and at last began the beautiful
hymn, “Peace, troubled soul,” her voice growing in steadiness and
sweetness and volume as she saw the effect it had upon poor Laura, whose
eyes grew soft and gentle, and finally filled with tears, which rolled
in great drops down her sunken cheeks.

Mrs. Jenks had relaxed her vigilance now, and Laura lay perfectly still,
listening with rapt attention to the song, and keeping her eyes fixed
upon Magdalen’s face, as if there were some spell to hold them there.

“Who are you?” she asked, when the song had ceased. “Where did you come
from and what is your name?”

“I came to live with Alice. You know Alice,” Magdalen said,—“she is your
daughter.”

“Yes, one of them; but not _that_ one, over there in the cradle. Please
give it a little jog. I can’t have my baby waking up and crying, for
that disturbs Arthur, and he might send it away to goat’s milk and a wet
nurse. Give it a jog, please.”

She pointed to the head of her bed, and for the first time Magdalen
observed a pretty little rosewood crib, with dainty pillow-cases,
ruffled and fluted, and snowy Marseilles quilt, spotlessly white and
clean. But there was no infant’s head upon the pillow, no little hands
outside the spread, or sound of infant’s breathing.

The crib was empty, and Magdalen glanced inquiringly at Mrs. Jenks, who
said:

“You may as well rock it first as last. She will give you no peace till
you do. It’s a fancy of hers that there’s a baby there, and she
sometimes rocks it day and night. She is always quiet when she is on
that tack, but sometimes the baby gets out of the cradle into her head,
and then there is no pacifying her. Her tantrum is over now, and, if you
are willing, I’ll leave her with you a few moments. I shan’t be out of
hearing. My room is across the hall.”

She was evidently anxious to get away; and Magdalen, who would not
confess to any fear, was left alone with the crazy woman. She had drawn
the crib nearer to her, and with her foot upon the rocker kept it in
motion, while Laura commenced a low, cooing sort of lullaby of “Hush, my
darling! mother’s near you!”

The novelty of her situation, and the wakefulness of the previous night,
began to have a strange effect on Magdalen, and, as she rocked the
cradle to the sound of that low, mournful music, it seemed to her as if
it were her own self she was rocking, herself far back in that past of
which she knew so little. There was a dizzy feeling in her head, a
humming in her ears, and for a few moments she felt almost as crazy as
the woman at her side. But as she became more accustomed to the room and
the situation, she grew calmer and less nervous, and could think what it
was better to reply to the strange questions her companion sometimes put
to her.

“If a person killed something and didn’t know it, and didn’t mean to,
and didn’t know as they had killed it, would God call them a murderer,
as He did Cain?”

This was one question, and Magdalen replied at random, that in such a
case it was no murder, and God would not so consider it.

“Then why has He branded me here in my head, where it keeps thump,
thump! just like the beating of a drum, and where it is so hot and
snarled?” Laura asked. Then, before Magdalen could reply, she continued:
“I did not mean to kill it, and I don’t think I did. I put it somewhere,
or gave it to somebody; but the more I try to think, the more it thumps,
and thumps, and I can’t make it out; only I didn’t; didn’t truly mean to
kill it. Oh, baby! No, no! I didn’t! I didn’t!”

She was sobbing in a pitiful kind of way, and Magdalen moved her
position so that she could take the poor, tired, “twisted” head upon her
bosom, while she soothed and comforted the moaning woman, softly
smoothing her tangled hair and asking her, at last, if she would not
like it brushed and put up out of her way.

“It will look nicer so,” she said; and, as Laura made no objection, she
brought the brush and comb from a little basket on the bureau, and then
set herself to the task of combing out the matted hair, which had been
sorely neglected since Alice went away.

“Allie will be glad to know I am so nice. She likes me neat and tidy,
but a woman with a child to tend cannot always keep herself as she
would,” Laura said, when the hair-dressing was ended and Magdalen had
buttoned her night-dress, and thrown around her a crimson shawl which
hung across the bed.

The woman herself was rocking the cradle now, and signaling Magdalen to
be quiet, for baby was waking up. To her there was a living, breathing
child in that empty cradle, and as her warning “sh-sh” rang through the
room, Magdalen shuddered involuntarily, and felt a kind of terror of
that crib, as if it held a goblin child. Suddenly Mrs. Grey turned to
her and said:

“You did not tell me your name, or else I have forgotten.”

“My name is Magdalen Lennox,” was the reply, and instantly the black
eyes flashed a keen look of curiosity upon the young girl, who winced a
little, but never turned her own eyes away from those confronting her so
fixedly.

“Magdalen,” the woman said, “Magdalen. That brings it back to me in
part. I remember now. That was the name I gave her when she was
christened, because I thought it would please Arthur, who was over the
sea. He wanted to call Alice that, but I was hot, and angry, and worried
in those days, and my temper ran very high, and I would not suffer it,
for out of Magdalen went seven devils, you know, and out of his Magdalen
went fourteen, I’m sure. She was a beautiful woman, I heard, and he
loved her better than he did me,—loved her first when he was young. I
found it out when it was too late. His mother told me so one day when
she couldn’t think of anything else to torment me with. The Duchess of
Beechwood! She’s out under the snow now, and her monument is as tall as
the Tower of Babel. She was a dreadful woman,—she and Clarissa both;
that was her daughter, and they just worried and tormented and hunted me
down, until I went away.”

Magdalen was gaining some insight into the family history of the Greys,
though how much of what she heard was true she could not tell. One
thing, however, struck her forcibly. She knew that poor Jessie Morton’s
second name was Magdalen, and from some source she had heard that Mr.
Grey used frequently to call her by that name, which he preferred to
Jessie, and when Mrs. Grey alluded to the beautiful woman whom her
husband had loved better than his wife, she felt at once that it was
Jessie to whom reference was made,—Jessie who had unwittingly made
trouble in this family,—Jessie for whom the father would have called
Alice, his first born, and for whom it would seem a later child was
subsequently named. She wanted so much to ask questions herself, but a
natural delicacy prevented her. She had no right to take advantage of a
lunatic’s ravings and pry into family matters, so she sat very quiet for
a few moments watching her patient, who said at last:

“Yes, that brings it back in part. St. Luke’s Church, and mother, and
Mr. and Mrs. Storms were sponsors, and we called one Madeline, and the
other Magdalen after the woman that Arthur liked the best. Did you ever
see her?”

“I’ve seen her picture. I lived in her house,” Magdalen replied:

“Tell me of her. Was she prettier than I am?—though how should you know
that, when you’ve only seen the gray-haired, wrinkled, yellow hag they
keep shut up so close at Beechwood? But I was handsome once, years ago,
when mother made those shirts for Arthur and I did them up, and he came
before they were done and sat by the table and watched me and said my
hands were too small and pretty to handle that heavy iron,—they would
look better with rings and diamonds, and he guessed he must get me some,
I wore a pink gingham dress that day, and hated ironing and sewing after
that, and wished I was a lady like those at the hotel where Arthur
boarded, and I took a dollar and bought a ring and put it on my finger,
and the next time he came he laughed and held my hand while he looked at
it, and told me he would get a better one if I would go with him to the
jeweller’s. Mother would not let me, and she had high words with him and
ordered him away and called him a hard name,—a villain, who only wanted
to ruin me. I was sick ever so long after that with something in my
head, though not like what’s got into it since. Arthur sent me flowers
and fruit and little notes, and came to the door to inquire, but still
mother would not believe him true. When I was most well he wrote a
letter asking me to meet him, and I ran away from mother and was
married, and had the rings at last,—a diamond and emerald and the plain
gold one,—and a white satin gown, and we travelled far and wide, and I
looked like a queen when he brought me here to the Duchess and Lady
Clarissa, and then to Penelope, who lived in New York, and wasn’t quite
so bad, though she snubbed me some. I was not as happy as I thought I
should be, for Arthur stayed so much in New York, and his mother was so
cold and grand and stiff, that I lay awake nights to hate her, and when
Alice was born the Duchess sent her out to nurse, because I was low-bred
and vulgar, and Arthur got sick of me and stayed in New York more than
ever, and left me to fight my way alone with the dragons, and I got so
at last that _I did fight good_.”

Her eyes were flashing fiercely, and Magdalen, who had listened
breathlessly to the strange story, could readily imagine just how that
black-eyed, high-spirited creature _did fight_, as she termed it, when
once she was fairly roused to action. There were rage and passion
delineated in every feature now, and her face was a bright purple as she
hurled her invectives against Arthur’s mother and sister Clarissa, who,
it would seem, had persecuted her so sorely, and who were now “lying
under the snow.”

“They gave me no peace day or night. They took Allie away. They turned
Arthur against me; they said I was low and ignorant and poor, and
finally they hinted that I was crazy,—made so by _temper_,—and _that_ I
would not stand, so I went away; and Arthur went East and I West to
mother, and the baby was born, which Arthur knew nothing about, and
mother died, and the other baby died, and I was alone, and went awhile
to Mrs. Storms; and then I drifted back here. I don’t know how, nor
when, nor where, nor what happened after I left Mrs. Storms only I lost
baby, but I didn’t kill it, Heaven knows I didn’t. I lost it, but
Providence sent it back, so I can see it, though nobody else does, and
it’s there in the cradle, and I’ve rocked it ever since, and worn the
carpet through. Don’t you see the white spots? Those are baby’s
footprints.”

She leaned over the side of the bed and pointed to the breadth of carpet
which was worn white and threadbare with the constant motion of the
crib. It was not the first carpet she had worn out, nor the second, for
“she had to rock to keep the baby quiet, even if it did annoy Arthur
so,” she said; and Magdalen’s heart ached for the poor, demented
creature, while in spite of all his faults she pitied the man who was
designated as Arthur, and who must suffer fearfully with such a wife.
Laura’s story, so long as it pertained to her girlhood and early married
life, had been quite connected and reasonable, and Magdalen gained a
tolerably clear understanding of the matter. Arthur Grey had
accidentally found this woman, who when young must have been as
beautiful as she was poor and lowly born. The obstacles thrown in his
way had only increased his passion, which finally outweighed every other
consideration, and led to a clandestine marriage, wholly distasteful to
the proud mother and sisters, who had so violently opposed poor Jessie
Morton. That they had made Laura’s life very unhappy; that the fickle
husband, grown weary of his unsophisticated wife, had cruelly neglected
her, until at last in desperation she had gone away, Magdalen gathered
from the story told so rapidly; but after that she failed to comprehend
what she heard. The baby which Laura said had died, and the one which
she did not kill and which she had christened Magdalen, with Mrs. Storms
as sponsor, were enigmas which she could not solve. It struck her as a
strange coincidence that she herself and the lost baby of the Greys
should have borne the same name, and for the same woman; and she
wondered what it was about that child which had affected the mother so
strangely and put such wild fancies into her head. Her hand had dropped
from the cradle now, the rocking had ceased, and the tired, worn-out
woman, who had tossed and shrieked and struggled the livelong night, was
falling asleep. Once, as her heavy lids began to droop, she started up,
and reaching for Magdalen’s hand, said to her, “Don’t leave me! I am
better with you here. Stay and sing more songs to me about the troubled
soul. It makes me feel as if I was in Heaven.”

She held Magdalen’s hand in her own, and Magdalen sang to her again,
while the tears rained from Laura’s eyes, and rolled down her faded
cheeks.

“Let me cry; it does me good,” she said, when Magdalen tried to soothe
her. “It cools me, and my head seems to grow clearer about the baby. It
will come to me by and by, what I did with her. Oh, my child, my
darling, God has surely kept her safe somewhere.”

She was talking very low and slowly, and Magdalen watched her until the
lips ceased to move, and the long eyelashes still wet with tears rested
upon the flushed cheeks. She was asleep at last, and Magdalen, looking
at her, knew that she must have been beautiful in her early girlhood
when Arthur Grey had won her for his bride. Traces of beauty she had
yet, in the regularity of her features, her well-shaped head, her
abundant hair, with just a little ripple in it, her white forehead, and
even teeth which showed no signs of decay. She was not old either, and
Magdalen thought how young she must have been when she became a wife.

“Poor woman! her life has been a failure,” she said, as she drew the
covering around the shoulders and over the hands, on one of which the
wedding ring and a superb diamond were still shining.

Mrs. Jenks seemed in no hurry to resume her post, and weary from her
wakefulness of the previous night, Magdalen settled herself in the large
easy chair by the bed, and was soon so fast asleep, that until twice
repeated she did not hear Honora, who came to tell her that breakfast
was waiting for her.




                              CHAPTER XL.
                          A GLIMMER OF LIGHT.


All that day Magdalen stayed with Mrs. Grey, who clung to her as a child
clings to its mother, and who was more quiet and manageable than she had
been in many weeks. Magdalen could soothe and control her as no one else
had done since she left the private asylum where her husband had kept
her so long, and this she did by the touch of her hand, the sound of her
voice, and the glance of her eye, which fascinated and subdued her
patient at once.

That night Mrs. Seymour and Alice came home, accompanied by Guy. They
had not been expected quite so soon, and Magdalen knew nothing of their
arrival until Alice, who had heard from Honora what had transpired
during her absence, entered the room. Mrs. Grey was sitting up in her
large arm-chair, her dressing-gown and shawl carefully arranged, her
hair nicely combed, and a look of content upon her face which Alice had
rarely seen. She was rocking still, with one foot on the crib and her
eyes fixed on Magdalen, who was repeating to her the Culprit Fay, which
she knew by heart, and to which the childish woman listened with all the
absorbing interest of a little girl of ten. At sight of Alice there came
a sudden gleam of joy over her face, succeeded by a look of fear as she
wound both arms tightly around Magdalen’s neck, exclaiming:

“Oh, Allie, I’m glad you’ve come, but you must not take _her_ away. She
does me good. I’m better with her. Say that she may stay.”

There was a momentary look of pain in Alice’s eyes at seeing a stranger
thus preferred to herself; but that quickly passed, and stooping over
her mother, she kissed her tenderly, and said:

“Magdalen shall stay with you as long as she will. I am glad you like
her so well. We all love Magdalen.”

“Yes, and it’s coming back to me. That was baby’s name,—the one I gave
her to please your father, and by and by I’ll think just where it is.”

Alice shot a quick, inquiring glance at Magdalen, as if to ask how much
of their family history her mother had revealed, but Magdalen merely
said:

“She seems to think there is a baby in the cradle,—a baby whom she says
she lost or mislaid. It died, I suppose.”

“Poor mother, she has suffered so much for that dead child,” was Alice’s
only reply, as she stood caressing her mother’s hair.

Then she tried to tell her something of her visit to New York and the
rare music she had heard; but Mrs. Grey did not care for that, and said
a little impatiently, “Don’t bother me now; I’m listening to the story.
Go on, Magdalen. He was just going to relight his lamp, and I want it
over with, for I know how he felt. My lamp has gone out, and all the
falling stars in heaven can’t light it.”

“I see you are preferred to me,” Alice said to Magdalen; “but if you do
her good, and I can see that you have already, I bless you for it. Poor,
dear mother, who has never known a rational moment since I can
remember.”

She kissed her mother again, and then left the room, while Magdalen went
on with her fairy tale, parts of which she repeated twice, and even
thrice, before her auditor was satisfied.

After that Magdalen spent most of her time with the poor lunatic, who,
if she attempted to leave her, would say so pleadingly, “Stay with me,
Magda; don’t go. It’s beginning to come back.”

She called her _Magda_ altogether, and though that name was sacred to
Roger’s memory, Magdalen felt as if there was a blessing in the way the
poor invalid spoke it, and her heart throbbed with a strange kind of
feeling every time she heard the “Ma-ag-da,” as Mrs. Grey pronounced it,
dwelling upon the first syllable, and shortening up the last.

Mr. Grey was still absent, glad, it would seem, of an excuse to stay
away from the tiresome burden at home. He had gone to Cincinnati, to
look after some property which belonged to his wife, and as there was
some difficulty in proving his claim to a portion of it, which had more
than quadrupled in value and was now in great demand, it was desirable
that all doubts should be forever settled; so he wrote to Alice, that he
should stay until matters were satisfactorily adjusted. He had heard of
Magdalen’s kind offices in the sick-room, and he sent a note to her,
adjuring her to stay with Mrs. Grey so long as her influence over her
was what Alice had reported it to be.

“Money can never pay you,” he said, “if you succeed in doing her good,
or even in keeping her quiet for any length of time; but to show you
that I appreciate your services, I will from this time forward make your
salary one thousand dollars per annum as Mrs. Grey’s attendant. It is
strange the influence which some people have over her, and strange that
you, a girl, can control her, as Alice says you do. Perhaps she
recognizes in you something that exists in herself, and so, on the
principle that like subdues like, she is subdued by you. The very first
time I saw you, there was something in your eyes and the toss of your
head which reminded me of her as she was when I first knew her, but of
course the resemblance goes no further. I would weep tears of blood
sooner than have your young life and bright beauty darkened as Laura’s
has been.”

When Magdalen received this note she was in a state of wild excitement,
and hardly realized what Mr. Grey had written, until she reached the
part where he spoke of her resemblance to his wife.

“Something in your eyes and the toss of your head.”

She read that sentence twice, and her eyes grew larger and darker than
their wont as she too saw _herself_ in the motions, and gestures, and
even looks of the maniac, whose talk that very day, whether true or
false, had sent through her veins a thrill of conjecture so sudden and
wonderful, that for an instant she had felt as if she were fainting.
Alice had talked but little of her mother’s insanity. It was a great
grief to them all, she had said, and she had wished to keep it from
Magdalen as long as possible, fearing lest the fact of there being a
lunatic in the house might trouble her, as it had done others who came
to Beechwood. Of the fancy about the baby she had never offered any
explanation, and Magdalen had ceased to think much of it, except as the
vagary of a lunatic, until the day when she received the note from Mr.
Grey. That afternoon Laura had talked a great deal, fancying herself to
be in the cars, and sometimes baby was with her and sometimes it was
not.

“That is the very last I remember,” she said, apparently talking to
herself. “I took the train at Cincinnati, and baby was with me; I left
the train, and baby was not with me. I’ve never seen her since, but I
think I gave her to a boy. It was ever so long before I got home, and
everything was gone, baggage, baby and all. I can’t think any more.”

Her voice ceased at this point, and Magdalen knew she was asleep; but
for herself she felt that she too was going mad with the suspicion which
kept growing in intensity, as she recalled other things she had heard
from Mrs. Grey, and to which she had paid no attention at the time. Once
she arose and going to the glass studied her own face intently. Then she
stole to the bedside of the sleeping woman and examined her features one
by one, while all the time the faintness was increasing at her heart,
and the blood seemed congealing in her veins. There was no trace of
color in her face that night when she met the family at dinner, and
Alice half shrunk from the eyes which fastened so greedily upon her and
scarcely left her face a moment.

“What is it, Magdalen?” she asked after dinner, when they were standing
alone before the parlor fire, and she felt the burning eyes still on
her. “What is it, Magdalen? Is anything the matter?”

Then Magdalen’s arms twined themselves around the young girl’s neck in
an embrace which had something almost fierce in its fervor.

“Oh, Alice, my darling; if it could be, if it could be!”

That was the answer Magdalen made, and her voice was choked with tears,
which fell in torrents upon Alice’s upturned face.

“Excuse me, do!” she added, releasing the young girl, and recovering her
composure. “I am nervous to-night. I can’t go back to your mother. I
shall be as mad as she is in a little while. Will you take my place in
her room just for this evening?”

Alice assented readily, and after a few moments she left the parlor, and
Magdalen was alone. But she could not keep quiet with that great doubt
hanging over her and that wild hope tugging at her heart. Rapidly she
walked up and down the long parlors, while the perspiration started
about her forehead and lips, which were so ashy pale that they attracted
the attention of Mrs. Seymour, when she at last came in, bringing her
crocheting with her.

“Are you sick, Miss Lennox?” she asked in some alarm; and then
Magdalen’s resolution was taken, and turning to the lady, whose shoulder
she grasped, she said, “Please come with me to my room, where we can be
alone and free from interruption. There is something I wish you to tell
me.” And without waiting for an answer she led the astonished woman into
the hall and up the stairs in the direction of her own room.




                              CHAPTER XLI.
                       MRS. SEYMOUR AND MAGDALEN.


Having locked the door, Magdalen brought a chair to Mrs. Seymour, and
said:

“You are out of breath; sit there, but let me stand. I should suffocate
if I were sitting down. I feel as if a hundred pairs of lungs were
rising in my throat.”

She was paler now than when Mrs. Seymour first met her in the parlor,
and her eyes flashed and sparkled and glowed as only one pair of eyes
had ever done before in Mrs. Seymour’s presence, and for an instant a
doubt of the young girl’s sanity crossed that lady’s mind, and she
glanced uneasily at the door, as if contemplating an escape. But
Magdalen was standing before her, and Magdalen’s eyes held her fast. She
dared not go now if she could, and she asked nervously what Miss Lennox
wanted of her.

“I want you to tell me what it is about the child of whom Mrs. Grey
talks so much. _Was_ there a child born after Alice, say nineteen or
twenty years ago, and did it die, or was it lost; and if so, when, and
how; and was Mrs. Grey here when it was born, or was she somewhere else,
in Cincinnati or vicinity? Tell me that. Tell me all about it.”

Mrs. Seymour was very proud and haughty, and very reticent with regard
to their family matters, especially the matters pertaining to her
brother’s marriage and his wife’s insanity. She never talked of them to
any one except Guy, from whom she had no secrets; and her most intimate
friends, the Dagons and Draggons of New York society, knew nothing
except what rumor told them of the demented woman who made Beechwood a
prison rather than a paradise. How, then, was she startled, and shocked,
and astonished, when this young girl,—this hired companion for her
niece,—demanded of her a full recital of what she had never told her
most familiar friends. Not _asked_ for it, but demanded it as a right,
and enforced the demand with burning eyes and the half-menacing attitude
of one determined to have her way. Ordinarily Mrs. Seymour would have
put this girl down, as she termed it, and given her a lesson in good
breeding and manners, but there was something about her now which
precluded all that, and after a moment she said:

“Your conduct is very strange, Miss Lennox. Very strange indeed, and
what I did not expect from you. I suppose I may be permitted to ask your
right to a story which few have ever heard?”

“Certainly,” Magdalen replied; “question my right as much as you like,
only tell me what I want to know. _Was_ there a child, and did it die?”

“There _was_ a child, and it _did_ die,” Mrs. Seymour said, and
Magdalen, nothing daunted, continued: “How do you know it died? Did you
see it dead? She says she left it in the cars; she told me so to-day.
Oh, Mrs. Seymour, tell me, please what you know about that child before
I, too, go mad!”

Magdalen was kneeling now before Mrs. Seymour, on whose lap her hands
were clasped, and her beautiful face was all aglow with her excitement
as she continued:

“I know a girl who was left in the cars somewhere in Ohio almost
nineteen years ago;—left with a young boy, and the mother, who took the
train at Cincinnati, never came back, and he could not find her. He
thinks she was crazy. She had very black hair and eyes, he said, and was
dressed in mourning. Perhaps it was Mrs. Grey. Did she come from
Cincinnati about that time? It was April, 18—, when the baby I mean was
left in the cars.”

Mrs. Seymour was surprised out of her usual reserve, and when Magdalen
paused for her reply, she said:

“My brother’s wife came from Cincinnati in May, not April; but we
thought she had been a long time on the road. As to its being 18—, I’m
not so sure; but it was nineteen years ago in May, I know, for husband
died the next July, and mother the winter after.”

“And what of the child? And how did it happen that Mrs. Grey was left to
travel alone? Where had she been, and where was Mr. Grey?” Magdalen
asked, and Mrs. Seymour replied, “My brother was in Europe,—sent there
by unhappy domestic troubles at home. Laura had been in Cincinnati, and
came back to Beechwood after the death of her mother and the child, of
whose birth we had never heard.”

“Never heard of its birth!” Magdalen exclaimed. “Then, perhaps, you do
not know certainly of its death. She says she left it in the cars with a
boy, and Roger was a boy; the child I told you of was left with him.”

“Who was that child, and where is she?” Mrs. Seymour asked, and Magdalen
replied, “_I_ am that child, and didn’t you say I reminded you of some
one. Didn’t Guy and Alice and your brother say the same; and I, too, can
see the resemblance to that crazy woman in _myself_.”

Her eyes were full of tears, and as she looked up at Mrs. Seymour her
head poised itself upon one side just as Laura’s had done a thousand
times in the days gone by. Mrs. Seymour was interested now; that
familiar look in Magdalen’s face had always puzzled her, and as she saw
her flushed, and excited, and eager, she was struck with the strong
resemblance she bore to Laura as she was when she first came to
Beechwood, and more to herself than to Magdalen she said:

“It is very strange, but still it cannot be,—though that child business
was always more or less a mystery to me. Miss Lennox,” and she turned to
Magdalen, “would you mind telling me the particulars of your having been
left in the car?”

Very rapidly Magdalen repeated the story of her desertion as she had
heard it from Roger, while Mrs. Seymour listened intently and seemed a
good deal moved by the description given of the mother.

“Was there nothing about you by which you might be identified? That is,
did they keep no article of dress?” she asked, and Magdalen sprang up,
exclaiming, “Yes,—the dress I wore; a crimson delaine, dotted with
black. I have it with me now.”

“A crimson delaine, dotted with black,” Mrs. Seymour repeated, while her
hands began to tremble nervously and her voice to grow a little
unsteady. “There was _such_ a dress in Laura’s satchel; baby’s dress,
she told us, and Alice has it in her drawer.”

“Get it, get it, and we will compare the two,” Magdalen cried, and
seizing Mrs. Seymour’s hand she dragged rather than led her to the door
of Alice’s room; then, going hastily to her trunk, she took from it the
dress which she had worn to Millbank. “Here it is,” she cried, turning
to Mrs. Seymour, who came in with another dress, at sight of which
Magdalen uttered a wild exultant cry, while every particle of color
faded from Mrs. Seymour’s face, and her eyes wore a frightened kind of
look. _The dresses were alike!_ The same material, the same size, the
same style, except that Mrs. Seymour’s was low in the neck, while
Magdalen’s was high, and what was still more confirmatory that they had
belonged to the same person, the buttons were alike, and Magdalen
pointed out to the astonished woman the same peculiarity about the
button holes and a portion of the work upon the dresses. The person who
made them must have been left-handed, as was indicated by the hems where
left-handed stitches would show so plainly.

“I am astonished, I am confounded, I am bewildered, I feel like one in a
dream,” Mrs. Seymour repeated to herself.

Then she dropped panting into a chair, and wiping the perspiration from
her face, continued:

“The coincidence is most remarkable; the dresses _are_ alike; and still
it is no proof. Was there nothing else?”

“Yes. Do you recognize this? Did you ever see it before?” Magdalen said,
holding up the little locket which had been fastened about her neck when
she came to Millbank.

Mrs. Seymour took it in her hands and examined it closely, then passed
it back with the remark, “I never saw it before, to my knowledge.”

“But the initials, ‘L. G.’—did you notice those?” Magdalen continued,
and then Mrs. Seymour took the locket again, and glancing at the
lettering whispered rather than said aloud:

“‘L. G.’ That stands for Laura Grey. It may be. I wish Arthur was here,
for I don’t know what to think or do.”

“You can at least tell me about the child,” Magdalen persisted, and Mrs.
Seymour, who by this time was considerably shaken out of her usual
reticence and reserve, replied, “Yes, I can do that, trusting to your
honor as a lady never to divulge what I may tell you of our family
affairs. My brother always had a _penchant_ for pretty faces, and while
he was young had several _affairs du cœur_ which came to nothing. When
he was forty, or thereabouts, he went to Cincinnati, where he stayed a
long time, and at last startled us with the announcement of his marriage
with Laura Clayton, a young girl of seventeen, whose beauty, he said,
surpassed anything he had ever seen. She was not of high blood, as we
held blood, he wrote, but she was wholly respectable, and pure, and
sweet, and tolerably well educated, and he wanted us to lay aside our
prejudices and receive her as his wife should be received. I was in
favor of doing so, though perhaps this feeling was owing in part to my
husband’s sensible reasoning and partly to the fact that I did not live
here then and would not be obliged to come in daily contact with her. My
home was in New York, and so I only heard from time to time of the
doings at Beechwood. It transpired afterward that Laura’s mother was a
widow, who lived much by herself, without relatives and only a few
acquaintances. She had come from New Orleans the year before, and bought
a house and quite a large lot of land in the suburbs of Cincinnati.
There was Spanish blood in her veins, and it shows itself in Laura. The
mother did some plain sewing for Arthur, who in that way saw the
daughter and finally married her against her mother’s wishes. I think
Mrs. Clayton was a sensible woman, or perhaps she feared that Arthur
only sought her daughter’s ruin; for she tried to keep them apart, and
so made the matter worse and drove them into a clandestine marriage.
Mother and sister Clarissa were here then. Clarissa was never married,
and from her I learned the most I know about the trouble. She deeply
regretted afterward the course they pursued toward Laura, whom they did
not understand, and whose life they made so wretched with their coldness
and pride. She was naturally high-spirited, but she bore patiently for a
long time whatever they laid upon her and tried, I believe, to please
them in all things. Clarissa herself told me that the girl never really
turned upon them, except as her eyes would sometimes blaze with anger,
until Alice was born, and mother wanted her put out to a wet nurse, who
lived so far away that for Laura to see her baby every day was
impossible. Then she rebelled openly, and there was a terrible scene,
but mother carried her point, as she usually did when she had Arthur
where she could talk to him. Laura fought like a tigress when the last
moment came, and mother took the baby from her by force, and then locked
her in her room for fear she would go down to the river and drown
herself, as she threatened to do. Arthur was in New York, or I think he
would have interfered when he saw how it affected Laura. I was sorry for
the poor girl when I heard of it from Clarissa. I had lost a dear little
baby and could sympathize with Laura. I think it makes a woman harder
and less considerate not to have a husband or children of her own, and
Clarissa had neither.”

Mrs. Seymour forgot that her mother had both husband and children, and
that therefore the thing which would excuse Clarissa could not be
applied to her. But Magdalen did not forget it, and her fists were
involuntarily clinched as if to smite the hard old woman who had torn
Laura’s baby from her.

“Does Alice know this?” she asked, and Mrs. Seymour replied, “She does
not, of course. There could be no reason for harrowing up her feelings
with a recital of the past, and I hardly know why I am telling _you_ the
story so fully as I am.”

“Never mind, go on;” Magdalen exclaimed eagerly, and Mrs. Seymour
continued:

“After the baby went away a kind of melancholy mood came over Laura and
she would sit for hours and even days without speaking to any one; then
she would have fits of crying, and again was irritable and quarrelsome,
so that it was a trial to live with her. After two or three months she
ceased to speak of her child, and when Arthur offered to take her to see
it flew into so fierce a passion that he took the next train to New York
and left her with mother.

“It was a habit of his to go away from anything disagreeable, and most
of his time was spent from home. He was always very fickle. To possess a
thing was equivalent to his tiring of it, and even before Alice’s birth
he was weary of his young wife; and so matters went on from bad to worse
till Alice was nearly a year old, and Arthur began to talk of going
abroad, while Laura proposed a separation, or that she should be allowed
to go to Cincinnati while her husband was away. They would all be
happier, she said; and his mother and Clarissa favored the plan. Arthur
consented, and went with her himself to Cincinnati, and settled a yearly
allowance upon her, and at her mother’s request bought three or four
vacant lots which adjoined hers and were for sale, and which she wanted
to hold so as to prevent shanties from being built upon them.”

“And didn’t Mrs. Grey see her baby before she went?” Magdalen asked, and
Mrs. Seymour replied:

“Yes, once. It was brought to the house, but she took little notice of
it, and said it belonged to the _Greys_, not to _her_. We think now she
was crazy then, though they did not suspect it at the time. She
expressed no regret whatever when Arthur left her, but on the contrary
seemed relieved to have him go. He sailed for Europe the next week, and
was gone a year and a half, or more. Laura wrote to him quite regularly
at first, but never held any communication with Beechwood. After a while
there was a break in her letters, and when at last she wrote she told
him something of which he had no suspicion at the time of his leaving
home. He ought to have come back to her then, but he did not, though he
sent her money and advised her to return to Beechwood. This she would
not do. She preferred to stay with her mother, she said; and he heard no
more from her for three or four months, when she wrote a few hurried
lines, telling him her baby _Madeline_ died when she was four weeks old,
and adding that she presumed he would not care, as it would save him the
trouble of taking the child from her as he had taken Alice. That roused
him a little to a sense of his duty, and he wrote kindly to her and told
her he was sorry, and advised her again to return to Beechwood, where he
said he would join her. To this she did not reply for a long time, and
when at last she wrote she said that her mother was dead, and that after
visiting a friend she was going back to Beechwood. The next he heard
from her she was here at Beechwood, where she had arrived wholly
unexpected by mother and Clarissa, who did not know that she was coming,
and who judged that she must have been weeks on the road. Her baggage
was lost, and she had nothing with her but a little satchel, in which
was a child’s dress and a few other articles. She was dressed in black,
and told them her mother was dead, but said nothing of the child of
whose birth they had never heard, she having insisted that Arthur should
not tell them of it. She was very quiet for a few days, never speaking
unless spoken to, and then she did not always answer. Occasionally they
heard her muttering to herself, ‘One is dead, and one is safe. They will
never find it,—never,’ but what she meant, they could not guess.

“Alice was spending a few days with her foster-mother up the river, and
did not return till Laura had been home a week. In all that time she had
never mentioned her child, and when at last she came, and Clarissa said
to her, ‘Your baby is here, Laura. Would you like to see her?’ she
sprang to her feet and her eyes glared like a maniac’s.

“‘Baby was hid,’ she said. ‘Baby was gone where they could not find it.’

“Then her mood changed, and she raved for the baby till Alice was
brought to her; but that only made her worse, and she became perfectly
furious, telling them this was not the baby whom she had lost, and whom
she insisted upon their finding.

“Clarissa wrote at once to Arthur, who hastened home, finding his mother
and sister at their wit’s end, and his wife raving mad, and calling
continually for the baby she had lost, or hid. That was her constant
theme—‘lost, or hid, or left somewhere.’ Arthur did his best to soothe
her, telling her the baby was dead, and asking if she did not remember
writing to him about it. But it did no good. Her reply was always the
same: ‘One is dead, and one is not.’

“For hours she would sit repeating these words in a kind of moaning,
half sobbing way, ‘one is dead, and one is not;’ and never from that
time has she known a rational moment. Hunting out Alice’s cradle, she
took it to her room, and rocked it day and night, saying her lost baby
was in it, and raving fearfully if the family made a noise in the room.

“This annoyed Arthur terribly. He likes quiet, and ease, and luxury,
and, as he could not have these in his own house, he sought them
elsewhere, and has travelled almost over the world. Twice Laura has been
in a private asylum. She was there all the time we were abroad; but
after our return Alice begged so hard for her to be allowed to come to
Beechwood, that Arthur brought her back, and will never move her again.

“Mother died the winter after Laura’s return, and Clarissa the year
following. As my husband was dead, and I alone in the world, I came here
to care for my brother and Alice. Poor girl! Her life has been a sad
one, though she knows nothing, or comparatively nothing, of the early
domestic trouble between her parents, and how her mother was received at
Beechwood.”

Mrs. Seymour paused here, and Magdalen, who had listened eagerly, asked,
“If that child which died when it was four weeks old had lived, how old
would it have been when Mr. Grey came home?”

Mrs. Seymour could hardly tell, for the reason that in her letter to her
husband Laura did not give the date of its birth but as nearly as they
could judge it must have been nine or ten months old, possibly more.

“Yes,” Magdalen said; “and the dress in the satchel,—did it never occur
to you that it could not have been made for a four weeks’ old baby. It
was meant for a larger child. And did you never think there might be a
meaning in the words, ‘One is dead, and one is not,’ Mrs. Seymour?” and
Magdalen grew more earnest and vehement. “There must have been two
children instead of one,—twins, one of whom died and the other she left
in the cars. I know it, I believe it. I shall prove it yet. She has
always talked to me of two, and one she said was Madeline and one was
Magdalen, and Mr. Irving told me that the woman in the cars called me
something which sounded like Magdalen. Don’t you see it? Can’t you
understand how it all might be?”

Mrs. Seymour was confounded and bewildered, and answered faintly, “Oh, I
don’t know; I wish Arthur was here.”

“I am going to him,” Magdalen exclaimed, starting to her feet,—“going at
once, and have him help me solve this mystery. Alice must not know till
I come back, and not then, if I fail. I shall start for Cincinnati
to-morrow. A woman can oftentimes find out things which a man cannot. Do
you think your nephew will go with me?”

She talked so fast, and with so much assurance, that Mrs. Seymour was
insensibly won to think as she did and assent to whatever she suggested;
and the result was that in less than half an hour’s time Guy, who had
been invited up to Magdalen’s room, had heard the whole of the strange
story. _He_ believed it, and indorsed Magdalen at once, and hurrahed for
his new cousin, and winding his arm around her waist waltzed with her
across the room, upsetting his Aunt Pen’s work-basket, and when she
remonstrated he caught her in his other arm and took her with him in his
mad dance. Exhausted, panting, and half indignant at her scapegrace
nephew, Auntie Pen released herself from his grasp, and after a time
Magdalen succeeded in stopping him, but he kept fast hold of her hands,
while she explained what she wanted of him, and asked if he would go
with her.

“Go with you? Yes, the world over, _ma belle_ cousin,” he said, and
greatly to the horror of prim Mrs. Penelope, he sealed his promise to
serve her with a kiss upon her brow.

Mrs. Seymour was shocked, and half doubted the propriety of sending
Magdalen off alone with Guy; but Magdalen knew the kiss was given to
Alice as her possible sister rather than to herself, and so did not
resent it.

They were to start the next day, but it was not thought best to let
Alice know of the journey until morning. Then they told her that a
matter of importance, which had recently come to Magdalen’s knowledge,
made it necessary for her to go to Cincinnati, and that Guy was going
with her. Alice knew they were keeping something from her, but would not
question them, and without a suspicion of the truth she bade Magdalen
and Guy good-by, and saw them start on their journey to Cincinnati.




                             CHAPTER XLII.
                             IN CINCINNATI.


Mr. Grey was breakfasting in that leisurely, luxurious kind of way which
he enjoyed so thoroughly. His morning papers were on the table beside
him. He had glanced them through, and read every word in them about poor
Laura’s property, which was now secured to her and her heirs forever. He
had succeeded in making his claim clear, and Laura and her heirs were
richer by some thirty thousand dollars than they were when last the
crazy woman was in the city. To a man with nearly half a million thirty
thousand dollars were not so very much; but Mr. Grey was glad to get it,
and had decided that it should be invested for Alice, just as his
breakfast appeared, and in dispatching that, he forgot the city lots and
houses, and the days when he had gone so often to one of them, now a
long time torn down to make room for a large and handsome block. He had
finished his first cup of coffee, and was waiting for his second, when a
hand was laid familiarly upon his shoulder, and Guy Seymour’s handsome
face confronted him.

“Why, Guy, how you frightened me!” he said. “Where did you come from? Is
anything the matter at home? Is it Alice?”

She was nearest his heart, and he asked for her first, while his cheek
paled for a moment; but Guy quickly reassured him.

There was nothing the matter with Alice; nothing the matter with any
one, he said. He had come on business, and as soon as Mr. Grey was
through with his breakfast he would like to see him alone. Then Mr. Grey
proceeded with his coffee and mutton chop, and omelette and hot cakes,
and Guy grew terribly impatient and nervous with waiting. Mr. Grey’s
appetite was satisfied at last, and he invited Guy to his room and asked
what he could do for him. Guy had the story at his tongue’s end. He had
repeated it to himself several times so as to be sure and make himself
understood, and after half an hour or so he _was_ understood, and Mr.
Grey knew why he was there, and who was with him. To say that he was
startled would convey but a faint idea of the effect Guy’s story had
upon him. Laura’s ravings about “the one that was dead and the one that
was not,” had come back to him with a new meaning and helped to prove
the _twin_ theory correct, and he was struck dumb with amazement, and
tried in vain to speak as some question he wished to ask presented
itself to his mind. He could not speak, his tongue was so thick and lay
so heavy in his mouth, while the blood rushed in such torrents to his
head and face that he plucked at his cravat as if to tear it off, so he
could breath more freely, and made a motion toward the window for air.

“Apoplexy, it has almost given me that,” he whispered as the fresh air
blew gratefully upon him, and he drank the water Guy brought to him.
Then leaning his head against the back of his chair, he said: “I am
greatly shocked by this story you have told me. It seems reasonable and
may be true, though I do not deserve it. I’ve been a villain, a rascal.
I abused and neglected Laura; I ought to have come home when she first
wrote about the baby, and should have done so but for that devilish
trait of mine, to follow a pretty face. I had an Italian woman in tow
and it blunted every other feeling, and when I heard the child was dead
I did not care so very much, though I wrote to her kindly enough; and
now, to have this great good come so suddenly upon me is too much,—too
much,”—

_Guy_ believed in Magdalen, and his belief had so colored his story that
Mr. Grey believed in her, too, at first. Then a doubt began to creep
into his mind, as was very natural, and he asked, “Where is she, and how
does she propose to prove it?”

“She is in No.——. She wishes to see you first. Will you go to her now?”
Guy said; and Mr. Grey arose, and leaning on Guy started for the room
where Magdalen was waiting for him.

When the first great shock came upon her Magdalen had thought only of
Alice, the darling sister it might be, and of the poor worn-out wreck
which, though a wreck, might be her mother still, and her heart had gone
out after them both and enfolded them with all a daughter’s and sister’s
love, but in this sudden gush of affection Mr. Grey had had little part.
So great had her excitement been, and so rapidly had she acted upon her
convictions, that she had scarcely thought of him in any other capacity
than that of her employer. But as she sat waiting for him, there
suddenly swept over her the consciousness that if what she hoped was
true, then he was her own father, and for a moment she rebelled against
it as against some impending evil.

“Roger is his sworn enemy,” she whispered faintly, as her mind went back
to the time when Roger had cursed him as his mother’s ruin. “Roger will
never forgive my being _his_ daughter,” she thought, and for an instant
she wished she had never told her suspicions to a human being, but had
kept them locked in her own bosom. Then she thought of Alice, and that
comforted her, and made her calm and composed when she heard the knock
at her door and saw Guy coming in with Mr. Grey.

He was very pale, and came toward her, with an eager, questioning look
in his eyes, which scanned her curiously. She had risen, and was
standing with her hands locked together, her head unconsciously poised
upon one side, and her body bent slightly forward. It was Laura’s
attitude exactly. Laura had stood just this way that night she met him
outside her mother’s house and he persuaded her to the clandestine
marriage. Save that there was about Magdalen more refinement, more
culture, and a softer style of beauty than had ever belonged to Laura
Clayton, he could have sworn it was the Laura of his mature manhood’s
love, or passion, who stood upon the rug by the fire, her dark eyes
meeting his with a wistful, earnest gaze. In an instant the forgot his
doubts;—his faith was strong as Guy’s, and he reached his arms toward
her, and his lips quivered as he said:

“You are so much like Laura that you _must_ be my child.”

She knew he expected her to go to him, but Jessie and Laura, and the
uncertainty as to herself and his right to claim her, rose up a mighty
barrier between them, and she made no movement towards him; she only
said:

“It is not sure that I am your child. We must prove it beyond a doubt,”
and in her voice there was a tone which Mr. Grey understood.

She knew Laura’s story. Penelope had told her, and she resented the
injury done to one who might be her mother. It was a part of his
punishment, and he accepted it, and put down the tenderness and love
which kept growing in his heart for the beautiful girl before him.

“No, it is not proved,” he said, “though I trust that it may be. Tell
me, please, your own story as you have heard it from Mr. Irving, and
also what you wish me to do.”

He had heard the whole from Guy, but the story gained new force and
reality as told by Magdalen, whose eyes and face and gestures grew each
moment more and more like Laura Clayton as she was years ago. Guy had
forgotten the locket, but Magdalen did not, and she showed it to Mr.
Grey, who examined it closely, then staggered a step or two toward her,
and steadied himself against the mantel, as he said:

“It _was_ Laura’s. I remember it perfectly and where I bought it, I gave
it to her myself. My likeness was in it then. You see it has been taken
out,” and he pointed to the inside of the ornament from which a picture
had evidently been removed. “Magdalen, I do not need stronger proof.
Will you let me call you daughter?”

The tears were streaming down his face, and Magdalen felt herself
beginning to relent, but there must be no mistake,—no shadow on which to
build a doubt hereafter. She could not take her place in the hearts of
that family as a rightful daughter of the house and then suddenly be
displaced by some other claimant. She must know to a certainty that she
was Magdalen Grey, and she replied:

“I am not satisfied; we must investigate farther than we have. Your wife
talked of a Mrs. Storms who was sponsor for her baby. Did you ever know
it was baptized? Did she write you to that effect?”

“Never. She only said that baby Madeline was dead,” Mr. Grey replied,
and after a moment’s hesitation Magdalen continued, “Tell me, please, if
you ever wished to give Alice another name than the one she bears, and
did your wife oppose it?”

Mr. Grey’s face was scarlet, but he answered promptly,—

“I _did_ propose calling Alice after a dear friend of mine whose second
name was Magdalen.”

“Then Mrs. Grey was right so far,” Magdalen rejoined, “and may have been
correct in her other statements to me, also. She told me one was
Madeline, and that to please you she called the other “Magdalen,” after
the friend for whom you wished Alice named, and that a Mr. and Mrs.
Storms were sponsors. Do you know any such people?”

Mr. Grey did not, and Magdalen continued:

“We must find them. Is it of any use to inquire in the vicinity where
Mrs. Grey once lived?”

“None whatever. Every house has been pulled down, and every family is
gone,” was the unpromising answer, but Magdalen was not disheartened.

“The christening must have been in church. Can you tell which one it was
likely to be?”

Mr. Grey thought it was St. Luke’s, as Mrs. Clayton was an attendant
there. They might——

He did not finish the sentence, for Magdalen started quickly,
exclaiming:

“There must be a Parish Register, and there we shall find it recorded,
and possibly trace Mrs. Storms. Let us go at once to the Rectory, if
there is one.”

Her bonnet and shawl were on in a trice, a carriage was called, and the
three were soon on their way to the house of the Rev. Henry Fowler,
Rector of St. Luke’s. He was a young man, who had only been there for a
year or two, but Magdalen’s beauty and excitement enlisted his sympathy
at once, and he went with them to the church and took from a dusty shelf
an old worn-looking volume, wherein he said was recorded the births,
deaths, and baptisms of twenty and twenty-five years ago. It was
Magdalen who took the book in her own hands, and sitting down upon the
chancel steps with her bonnet falling back from her flushed face and her
white lips compressed together, turned the pages eagerly, while the
three men stood looking at her. Suddenly she gave a cry, and the three
came near her.

“Look,” she said, “it’s here. There was a child baptized,” and she
pointed to the record of the baptism of “Magdalen Laura,” daughter of
Arthur and Laura Grey. Sponsors, “Mr. and Mrs. James Storms, Cynthiana,
Kentucky.”

Then suddenly a cloud passed over her face as she said sadly, “But there
is only _one_. Where is _Madeline_?”

“Turn to the deaths,” Guy said, and with trembling fingers Magdalen did
as he bade her, but found no trace of Madeline.

Only Mrs. Clayton’s death was recorded there, and the tears gathered in
Magdalen’s eyes and dropped upon the register as she felt that her hopes
were being swept away. It was Guy who comforted and reassured her by
suggesting that Madeline might have died before the christening, and
Magdalen caught eagerly at it, and springing up exclaimed, “Yes, and
they neglected to record her death; that’s it, I know; we will find this
Mrs. Storms; we will go at once to Cynthiana. Is it far? Can we reach it
to-day?”

It was not very far, the clergyman said. It was on the railroad between
Cincinnati and Lexington, but he did not believe she could go that day,
as the train was already gone.

It seemed an age to wait until the morrow, but there was no help for it;
and Magdalen passed the day as best she could, and when the morning came
and they started for Cynthiana, she was almost sick with excitement,
which increased more and more the nearer she drew to Mrs. Storms, who
was to confirm her hopes or destroy them forever.




                             CHAPTER XLIII.
                             IN CYNTHIANA.


             *--------------------------------------------*
             |           GEORGE P. STORMS & CO.,          |
             |                                            |
             |                 DEALERS IN                 |
             |                                            |
             |     DRY GOODS, GROCERIES & PROVISIONS.     |
             *--------------------------------------------*

That was the sign which our travellers saw after landing at the station
in the little town of Cynthiana. Magdalen was the first to see it, and
the first to enter a low room where a young man of twenty-five or more
was weighing a codfish for a negress with a blue turban bound around her
head.

Magdalen was taking the lead in all things, and Mr. Grey and Guy let
her, and smiled at her enthusiasm and the effect she produced upon the
young man. He was not prepared for this apparition of beauty in so
striking contrast to old Hannah and her codfish, and he blushed and
stammered in his reply to her question as to whether “Mrs. James Storms
was a relative of his, and lived near them.”

“She is my mother, and lives just down the street. Did you wish to see
her?” he said, and Magdalen replied:

“Yes; that is, if she is the Mrs. Storms I am after. Is she a church
woman, and has she ever been in Cincinnati?”

“She is a church woman, and has been in Cincinnati,” the young man said,
and then he followed Magdalen to the door and pointed a second time to
his mother’s house, and stood watching her as she sped like a deer along
the muddy street, leaving Mr. Grey and Guy very far behind her.

A very respectable-looking woman answered Magdalen’s knock, and inviting
her to enter, stood waiting for Mr. Grey and Guy, who had just reached
the gate.

It was Magdalen who did most of the talking,—Magdalen who, without
taking the chair offered her, broke out impetuously, “Are you Mrs. James
Storms, and did you years ago,—say nineteen or twenty—know a Mrs.
Clayton, in Cincinnati, and her daughter, Mrs. Grey,—Laura they called
her?”

The woman, who seemed to be naturally a lady, cast a wondering glance at
Magdalen, and replied:

“I am Mrs. Storms, and I knew Laura Clayton, or rather Mrs. Grey. Are
you her daughter? You look like her as I remember her.”

Magdalen did not answer this question, but went on vehemently:

“Were you much with Mrs. Grey, and can you tell me anything about her
starting for her home in New York, and if she had a baby then, and how
old it was, and what dress did it wear? Try to remember, please, and
tell me if you can.”

Mrs. Storms was wholly bewildered with all these interrogatories of a
past she had not recalled in years, and looked inquiringly at Mr. Grey,
who was standing by Magdalen, and who said with a smile:

“Not quite so fast. You confuse the woman with your rapid questions. Ask
her one at a time; or perhaps it will be better for me to explain a
little first.”

Then as briefly as possible he repeated what he thought necessary for
Mrs. Storms to know of the business which had brought them there, and
asked if she could help them any.

For a moment Mrs. Storms was too much surprised to speak, and stood
staring, first at Magdalen and then at Mr. Grey, in a dazed, helpless
kind of way.

“Lost her baby,—the little child I stood for! Didn’t have it when she
got home, nor her baggage either! it takes my breath away! Of course she
was crazy. I can see it now, though I did not suspect it then. I only
thought her queer at times.”

“Yes, but tell us; begin at the beginning,” Magdalen exclaimed, too
impatient to wait any longer. And thus entreated, Mrs. Storms began:

“I knew Mrs. Clayton in New Orleans, before she moved to Cincinnati, or
I was married and came here. I had seen Laura when a little girl, but
did not know much of her until she came home after her marriage. Then I
saw her every time I was at her mother’s, which was quite often,
considering the distance between here and Cincinnati, and the tedious
way we had then of getting there by stage. My husband, who is dead now,
and myself were sponsors for her baby, whom she called Magdalen.”

“Was there _one_ or _two_ children? Tell me that first, please,”
Magdalen said, and when Mrs. Storms replied, “She had _two_, but one
died before it was christened,” she gave a sudden scream, and staggered
a step towards Mr. Grey, who, almost as white and weak as herself, laid
his hand with a convulsive grasp upon her shoulder and said, “Two
children! twins! and I never knew it!”

“Never knew it!” Mrs. Storms repeated. “I wrote it to you myself the day
after they were born. I happened to be there, and Laura asked me to
write and tell you, and I did, and directed my letter to Rome.”

“I never received it, which is not strange, as I journeyed so much from
place to place and had my mail sent after me,” Mr. Grey rejoined, and
Mrs. Storms continued, “I remember now that after my letter was sent
Laura grew worse,—crazy like, we thought, and seemed sorry I had
written, and said the Greys did not like children and would take her
babies from her, and when the little sickly one died she did not seem to
feel so very badly and said it was safe from the Greys. She was always
queer on that subject, though she never said a word against her husband.
She had plenty of money, and, I supposed, was going back to Beechwood as
soon as you returned. I was not with her when Mrs. Clayton died; it was
sudden,—very, and I only went to the funeral. Laura told me, then, she
was going home, but said she wished first to visit me. I consented, of
course, though I wondered that she did not go at once. She came to me
after the funeral, and stayed some time with her child, and appeared
very sad and depressed, and cried a great deal at times, and then,
again, was wild, and gay, and queer.”

“But the child,—the little girl—How did she look?” Magdalen asked.

And Mrs. Storms replied:

“She was very healthy and fat; a pretty creature, with dark eyes, like
her mother’s, and dark hair too. A beautiful baby I called her, who
might easily grow to be just like you, miss.”

She was complimenting Magdalen, whose face flushed a little as she
asked:

“Do you remember what the child wore when she went away? Would you know
the dress if you saw it?”

Mrs. Storms hardly thought she would. Mrs. Grey was in mourning, but
about the baby she did not know.

“Was the dress like this?” Magdalen asked, taking from her satchel the
dress she had worn to Millbank, and the one found in Laura’s bag.

Mrs. Storms looked at them a moment, and then a sudden gleam of
intelligence broke over her face as she exclaimed:

“I do remember them perfectly now. I made them myself for Mrs. Grey.”

“And you are left-handed?” interrupted Magdalen.

“Yes, I am left-handed. You knew that by the hems? You would make a
capital lawyer,” Mrs. Storms said, laughingly. Then, excusing herself a
moment, she left the room, but soon returned, bringing a patch-work
quilt, made from bits of delaine.

Conspicuous among these were blocks of the same material as the two
spotted dresses. To these blocks Mrs. Storms called Magdalen’s
attention.

“I had a baby then, a boy, Charlie, he is dead now, and these are pieces
of the dress Mrs. Grey gave to him. She bought enough for him and her
baby, too, and I made them both and then found there was still material
for another, provided the sleeves were short and the neck low. So I made
that at the very last, and as Laura’s trunk was full she put it in her
satchel.”

Mr. Grey’s hand deepened its grasp on one whom he now knew to be his
child beyond a doubt, and who said to Mrs. Storms:

“Did she go from here alone to Cincinnati, and about what time?”

“It was in April, and must have been nineteen years ago. I know by
Charlie’s age. I had hurt my ankle and Mr. Storms was going with her,
but at the last something happened, I don’t remember what, and he did
not go. She said a great many harsh things about her mother-in-law and
sister, and about their taking her baby from her, and the night before
she went was more excited than I ever saw her, but I did not think her
crazy. There was no railroad then, and she went by stage, and from
Cincinnati sent me a note that she was safely there and about to start
for the East. I wondered a little she never wrote to me, but fancied she
was with her grand friends and in her handsome house and had forgotten
poor folks like us, and I would not write first. Then I had a great deal
of trouble pretty soon.

“Charlie died, and Mr. Storms’ lungs gave out, and I went to Florida
with him and buried him there, and after six years came back to
Cynthiana. So you see there was a good deal of one thing and another to
put Laura out of my mind.”

Many more questions were asked and explanations and suggestions made
until it was preposterous for Magdalen to require more testimony. She
_was_ Mr. Grey’s daughter,—she believed it now, and her heart throbbed
with ecstasy when she remembered Alice, whom she already loved so much.
There was also a feeling of unutterable tenderness and pity for the poor
crazy woman who had suddenly come up in the capacity of her mother. She
could, aye, she did love her, all wrecked and shattered and imbecile as
she was; but she could not so soon respond to the affection which showed
itself in every lineament of Mr. Grey’s face and thrilled in the tone of
his voice as he wound his arm around her neck, and drawing her closely
to him said, with deep emotion:

“Magdalen, my daughter, my darling child! Heaven has been better to me
than I deserved.”

He stooped and kissed her lips, but she did not give him back any
answering caress, except as she suffered him to hold her in his embrace.
He felt the coldness of her manner, and it affected him deeply, but
there was no opportunity then for any words upon the subject. The train
was coming which would take them to Cincinnati, and so after a little
further conversation with Mrs. Storms, whom Mr. Grey resolved to
remember in some substantial form, they bade her good-by and were soon
on their way to the city.




                             CHAPTER XLIV.
                          FATHER AND DAUGHTER.


There was no longer a shadow of doubt that Mr. Grey and Magdalen bore to
each other the relation of father and child. He had been satisfied with
far less testimony than Magdalen required, and even she was satisfied at
last, though she suggested the propriety of ascertaining from Roger if
his remembrances of the woman who had left her with him tallied with
Mrs. Storms’ description of Mrs. Grey as she was when she left
Cynthiana. To this Mr. Grey assented, and proposed that as personal
interviews were always more satisfactory than letters, Guy should go to
Schodick, leaving himself and Magdalen to rest a day or so in
Cincinnati, and then return to Beechwood, where Guy would join them with
his report. Magdalen had half hoped he might go himself, though she knew
how he must shrink from a meeting with Roger Irving, and mingled with
her happiness in having found both parents and sister was a keen sense
of pain as she thought how the gulf between herself and Roger was
widened by the discovery of her lineage.

“Roger will hate me now, perhaps,” she said to herself, when alone in
her room at the hotel she sat down to rest and tried to realize her
position.

Guy was going early the next morning before she was up, and if she would
send any message to Roger it must be written that night. Once she
thought to write him a long letter, begging him for her sake and
Alice’s, whom he was sure to love, to forgive her father all the wrong
he had done, and to come to them at Beechwood, where he would receive a
cordial welcome. But after a moment’s reflection she felt that she was
hardly warranted in writing thus. His cordial welcome from all parties
was not so certain. Mr. Grey had not intimated a wish to see him or
hinted at anything like gratitude for all Roger had done for her. It
would be pleasanter both for Roger and her father never to meet. She
could not invite him to Beechwood and so with a gush of tears she took
her pen and wrote to him hastily:

  “MR. IRVING: Can you forgive me when you hear who I am, and will you
  try to think of me as you did in the days which now seem so very far
  in the past. I have been your ruin, Roger. I have brought to you
  almost every trouble you ever knew, and now to all the rest I must add
  this, that I am the child of your worst enemy, Arthur Grey. Don’t hate
  me for it, will you? Alice, who is much better than I, would say it
  was God’s way of letting you return good for evil. I wish you would
  think so, too, and I wish I could tell you all I feel, and how
  grateful I am to you for what you have done for me. If I could I would
  repay it, but I am only a girl, and the debt is too great ever to be
  cancelled by me. May Heaven reward you as you deserve.

                                         “Your grateful        MAGDALEN.

  “P. S.—Mr. Seymour will tell you the particulars of my strange story.
  You will like him. There is not a drop of Grey blood in his veins.”

This was Magdalen’s letter, which she handed to Guy in her father’s
presence when she went to say good-night to the two gentlemen in the
parlor.

“Will you write to Mr. Irving, too?” she asked Mr. Grey, who shook his
head, while a look of embarrassment and pain flitted across his face.

“Not now,—some time perhaps I may. I am truly grateful to him, and Guy
must tell him so. Guy will know just what to say. I leave it in his
hands.”

Mr. Grey was not quite like himself that night, and when next morning
Magdalen met him at breakfast, he still seemed abstracted and
absent-minded, and but little inclined to talk. When breakfast was over,
however, he went with her to her room, and sitting down beside her
grasped her hands in his, and said:

“Magdalen, my child, I never expected to see this day,—never thought
there was so much happiness in store for me,—a happiness I have not
deserved, and which still is not unmixed with pain and humiliation.
Magdalen, my daughter,” he continued, “there is something between us
which should not be between a father and his child. I feel it in your
manners, and see it in your face, and hear it in your voice. What is it,
Magdalen?”

He was talking very kindly, and sadly too, and the tears glittered in
Magdalen’s eyes, but she did not reply. She could not tell him all the
hard things she had written against him in her heart, before she knew
him to be her father, but he guessed them in part, and continued:

“Penelope told you something of your mother’s story. I wonder if she
told you all?”

“Yes, all that I ever care to hear,” Magdalen replied. “I know of her
clandestine marriage, her wretched life at Beechwood, of their taking
Alice from her, and of—of your cruel neglect of her.”

She said the last hesitatingly, for there was something in the blue eyes
fastened upon her which prevented her saying as hard things as she felt.

“Yes, it’s all true, and more,” Mr. Grey replied. “Penelope could not
tell you as bad as it was, for she never knew all. I did neglect your
mother when she needed me the most. I liked my ease. I could not endure
scenes. I was afraid of mother. I acted a coward’s part, and Laura
suffered for it. She was beautiful once,—oh, so beautiful when I first
met her in her sweet young girlhood! She was much like you, and I loved
her as well as I was capable of loving then. I had been thwarted and
crossed, and had done things for which I have always been sorry, but
never as sorry as since I have known you were my child, for there is
something in your face which seems continually to reproach me for the
past, and until I have made you my confession, I feel that there cannot
be perfect confidence between us. I think I had seen you before you came
to Beechwood.”

“Yes, in Belvidere, at Mrs. Irving’s grave, though I did not know who
you were. I had not heard of you _then_.”

She knew about Jessie,—Mr. Grey was sure of that, and with something
between a sigh and a groan, he said:

“You have heard of that sad affair too, I see; but perhaps you don’t
know all, and how I was deceived.”

“Yes, I know all. I have seen Mrs. Irving’s letter—the one she wrote on
board the ‘Sea Gull,’ and to which you added a postscript. Mr. Grey, why
did you write so coldly? Why did you express no sorrow for what you had
done? Why did you leave a doubt of Jessie to sting and torment poor
Roger, the truest, the best man that ever lived?”

Magdalen was confronting her father with poor Jessie’s wrongs, and he
felt that, if possible, she resented them more than those done to her
mother.

“I was a fiend, a demon in those days,” he said. “I hated the old man
who had won the prize I coveted so much. I did not care how deeply I
wounded him. I wanted him to feel as badly as I felt when I first knew I
had lost her. I was angry with fate, which had thwarted me a second time
and taken her from me just as I thought possession secure. I did not
despair of coaxing her to go with me at last,—that is, I hoped I might,
for I knew her pliant nature; but death came between us, and even in
that terrible hour, when the water around me was full of drowning,
shrieking wretches, I cursed aloud when I saw her golden hair float on
the waves far beyond my reach, and then go down for ever.”

He shuddered as if with cold, was silent a moment, and then went on:

“I loved Jessie Morton as I have never loved a woman since, not even
your mother. I went to Belvidere just because she had once lived there.
I met you in the graveyard, and was struck with your eyes, which
reminded me of Laura. I never dreamed you were my child, but I was
interested in you, and made you a part of the little pencil sketch I
drew of the yard. That picture has often excited Alice’s curiosity, for
it was hung in my room at home. When you came and I heard you were from
Millbank I hid the sketch away, lest you should see it and recognize the
place and wonder how I came by it. You see I am telling you everything,
and I may as well confess that when Penelope told me you were from
Millbank I wished you had never come to us. We usually hate what we have
injured, and anything connected with the Irvings has been very
distasteful to me, and I could not endure to hear the name.”

“But you would like Roger; he is the best, the noblest of men!” Magdalen
exclaimed, so vehemently that her father must have been dull indeed if
he had failed to see how strong a hold Roger Irving had on Magdalen’s
affections.

He did see it, but could not sympathize with her then, or at once lay
aside all his olden prejudice against the Irvings, and it would be long
before Magdalen would feel that in her love for Roger she had her
father’s cordial sympathy.

“I have no doubt you speak truly,” he said, “and some time, perhaps, I
may see him and tell him myself that his mother was pure, and good, and
innocent as an angel; but now I wish to talk of something else, to tell
you of my former life, so you may know just the kind of father you have
found.”

Magdalen would rather not have listened to the story which followed, and
which had in it so much of wrong, but there was no alternative. Mr. Grey
was resolved upon a full confession, and he made it, and when the
recital was finished, he said:

“I have kept nothing from you. I would rather you should know me as I
am. I have told you what I could never tell to Alice. She could not bear
it; but you are different. Alice leans on me, while something assures me
that I can lean on you. I am growing old. I have a heavy burden to bear.
I want you to help me; want you to trust me; to love me, if you can. I
have sinned greatly against your mother; have helped to make her what
she is. But I have tried to be kind to her these many years; and I ask
you, her child and mine, to for give all that is past and try to love
me, if only ever so little. Will you, Magdalen?”

He held his hands toward her, and Magdalen took them in hers, and by the
kisses and tears dropped upon them, Arthur Grey knew that there was a
better understanding between himself and Magdalen than had existed an
hour ago; that she knew the worst there was to know of him, and would,
in time, see and appreciate the better side of his character, and with
this he was content, and seemed much like himself, the courtly, polished
gentleman, whose attentions were almost lover-like, and who showed in
every look and action how thoroughly he believed in and how fast his
love and interest was increasing for the beautiful girl who had been so
conclusively proved to be his daughter.




                              CHAPTER XLV.
                             AT BEECHWOOD.


It was not possible for Mrs. Seymour to keep perfectly quiet with regard
to the cause of Magdalen’s sudden journey to Cincinnati, especially as
Alice herself talked and wondered so much about it. Little by little it
came out, until Alice had heard the entire story, which made her for a
time almost as crazy as Laura herself. A few lines from Guy written
hurriedly in the cars, on his way to Schodick, told her at last that
what she hoped was true, and then in the solitude of her room she knelt,
and amid tears of joy and choking sobs paid her vows of praise and
thanksgiving, and asked that she might be made worthy of the priceless
gift so suddenly bestowed upon her. The next day a telegram from her
father apprised her that he would be home that night “with Magdalen,
your sister;” and Alice kissed the words “your sister,” and repeating
them softly to herself went dancing about the house, now explaining to
the astonished servants, and again trying to convey some definite idea
to the darkened mind of her mother. But Laura’s only answer was, “Baby
is in the cradle. I see her if you do not.”

She was, however, pleased that Magdalen was coming home, and asked to be
made “tidy and nice, so that Magda would be glad.”

Once, as Alice was buttoning the clean wrapper and arranging the crimson
shawl, which gave a soft tint to the sallow, faded face, the poor
creature’s lip quivered a little as she said, “Am I really nice, and
will Arthur kiss me, think you? I wish he would. It might make me
better. Your talk of Cincinnati has brought queer things back to me, and
sometimes I can almost get hold of how it was, then it goes again. I
wish Arthur _would_ kiss me.”

“I hope he will. I think he will,” Alice said, her own kisses falling in
showers upon the wasted face of the invalid, who seemed more rational
than she had for many weeks.

As the day wore on and the hour approached for the travellers to arrive,
Alice grew very restless and impatient, and would not for an instant
leave the window where she watched anxiously for the carriage.

“They are coming; they are here,” she cried at last, and running into
the hall she was the first to welcome Magdalen, whose face was drenched
with tears, and whose heart throbbed with an entirely new sensation of
happiness as she felt Alice’s kisses upon her lips and the tight clasp
of her arms about her neck.

Aunt Penelope came next, and though her greeting was more in accordance
with perfect propriety, there was much genuine affection and kindness in
it, and Magdalen knew that she believed in her and accepted her as a
niece. Mr. Grey was nowhere to be seen. He had stood an instant and
looked on when Alice and Magdalen first met, then he vanished from
sight, and Alice found him half an hour later in her mother’s room,
whither he had gone at once. Perhaps the recovery of his daughter had
brought back something of his olden love for Laura, or there were really
better impulses at work within, for his first thought was for his wife,
and when, as he came in, she asked if “She did not look nice,” he
stooped and kissed her as he had not done in years; and the poor
creature, who had known so much suffering, clung to him, and laying her
aching head upon his bosom, sobbed and wept like a child, saying to
herself, “he did, he did—kiss me,—he did—”

“Laura,” Mr. Grey said, softly, when she had grown a little calm, “try
to understand me, won’t you? The lost baby is found. It is Magdalen,
too, whom a kind man took care of. We have seen Mrs. Storms in
Cynthiana; you remember her?”

Laura remembered Mrs. Storms, and for a few moments the fixed expression
of her eyes and the drawn look about her forehead and mouth showed that
reason was making a tremendous effort to grasp and retain what she
heard. But it had been dethroned too long to penetrate the darkness now,
and when she spoke, it was to assert that “baby was in the cradle over
there; Magdalen was too big to be her baby.” Hopeless and disheartened,
Mr. Grey desisted in his attempts to make her understand, but stayed by
her till Alice came to say that dinner waited.

It was thought best that Magdalen should not see Laura until the next
morning, when it was hoped that she might convey some definite idea to
her mind. They were to meet alone, and after breakfast Magdalen repaired
to the sick-room, and entering unannounced, was received by her mother
with outstretched arms and a cry of joy.

“You’ve been gone long, Magda,—so long,” she said, “and my head has
ached so for you.”

“But I’ve come now to stay always. I have found the baby, too. Let me
tell you about it,” Magdalen replied, controlling her own emotions with
a mighty effort, and keeping as calm and composed as it was possible for
her to do. “I’ll make it like a story,” she said; and Laura listened
very quietly while Magdalen, beginning at the funeral of Mrs. Clayton,
went over the whole ground correctly, until she reached the _cars_ and
the _boy_ who took the baby.

Then she purposely deviated from the truth, and said it was a _woman_ to
whom the child was given.

“No, no, not a woman,” Laura exclaimed, vehemently. “It was a boy, and I
sat with him, and my head was all in a snarl. I fell when I got out of
the stage in Cincinnati, and struck it a heavy blow on the pavement, and
it set to buzzing so loud.”

Here was something of which Magdalen had never heard; the blow on the
head would account for the culmination of the queer fancies which must
have been gathering in Laura’s brain for months and years, and which
broke out suddenly into decided insanity. If that were true she could
understand better than she did before why she had been abandoned; but
she did not stop then to reason about it. She was too anxious to keep
her mother to the point, and when she paused a moment she said to her,
“You fell and hurt your head on the pavement, and then got into the
train.”

“Yes, the next day, or the next, I don’t know which, my head ached so,
and I didn’t know anybody to tell, and I had baby to care for, and I
thought the Grand Duchess would get her as she did Alice, and shut me
up, and the boy looked good and true, and I gave her to him, and got out
and thought I’d run away, and there was another train standing there,
and I took it and went I don’t know where, nor what else, only I was
back in Cincinnati again, and after a great while got here to the Grand
Duchess, with the baby safe as safe could be. My head was sore a long
time, but I did not tell them about the blow for fear they’d say I was
crazy, but they said it just the same.”

She was getting excited, and anxious to make the most of the present
opportunity, Magdalen took up the story herself, and told what the boy
did with the child, and how he called her Magdalen, after the same lady
for whom Mrs. Grey had named her, and how the child grew to a woman, and
came out at last to Beechwood, sent there by Heaven to find her sister,
and minister to her poor mother, who did not know her at first, but who
would surely know her now.

“Don’t you, _mother_; don’t you know I am your daughter Magdalen?”

For an instant Laura seemed to comprehend her. There was a perplexed
look on her face, then her lip began to quiver and her tears to come,
and throwing her arms around Magdalen’s neck, she said, “Mother, mother,
you call me that as Alice does. You say you are the baby, and Arthur
said so too. I wish I could remember, but I can’t. Oh, I don’t know what
you mean, but you make me so happy!”

And that was Magdalen’s success, with which she tried to be satisfied,
hoping there might come a time when the cloud would lift enough for her
to hear her mother call her daughter, and feel that she knew what she
was saying.

The next day Guy came from Schodick. Magdalen was the first to meet him,
and her eyes asked the question her lips would never have uttered.

“No, _Miss Grey_” Guy said, laughingly, adopting the name which sounded
so oddly to her. “He did not send any written reply to your note. There
is some _confounded bother_ on his mind, I could not divine what;
something which sealed his lips, though his face and eyes and manner had
‘Magdalen, Magdalen,’ written all over and through them. Don’t look so
sorry, cousin,” he continued, winding his arm around her waist, “and
don’t try to look so innocent, either. I guessed the whole thing when
you handed me the note, and I know it for certain now. You love Roger
Irving, he loves you. There is nothing truer than that, but there is
something between you,—what, I don’t know,—but I’ll find it out. I’ll
clear it up. He is a splendid fellow, and almost idolized, I judge, by
the people of Schodick. Not much like his nephew Frank,——”

Here Guy stopped suddenly, for Mr. Grey was coming in with Alice, who
asked the result of his visit to Mr. Irving.

“I have learned but little that we did not know before,” Guy said. “Mr.
Irving’s description of the woman who left the child tallies exactly
with what I should suppose Mrs. Grey might have been at that time. A
woman of twenty or thereabouts, medium size, dressed in mourning,
carrying a satchel, with black hair and eyes,—the woman I mean, not the
satchel,—restless, peculiar eyes they were, and he said he had
frequently noticed the same peculiarity about Magdalen’s, which means, I
take it, that they flash and glow and raise the mischief with a fellow.”

He gave a comical look at Magdalen, and did not observe the frown on Mr.
Grey’s face, but Magdalen did, and felt a throb of pain as she saw a new
obstacle laid across the path to Roger. There were many things she
wanted to ask Guy about that home in Schodick which she could not ask
with her father and Alice present, and she felt as if she must cry
outright with pain and disappointment. Guy, however, was not one to lose
much of what was passing around him, and after telling Mr. Grey the
particulars of his interview with Roger, he sauntered towards the
library, knowing that Magdalen would follow him. And she did, and
blushed scarlet at the whistle he gave as he said, “I knew you would
come. Now what shall I tell you? What do you want to know most?”

He had her secret. There was no use in trying to conceal it, and
Magdalen did not try, but said, “Don’t laugh at me, Guy. Think what
Roger has been to me all these years, and tell me how he looks, and
about the house, and does he work very hard? Oh, Guy, he was made poor
by _me_, you know, and I have _all_ my wages saved up ready to send him,
but now I can’t earn any more, and what I’ve got is so little.”

Her tears were rolling down her cheeks, but she brushed them away and
looked half indignantly at Guy, who laughed merrily as he said: “The
absurdity of your sending money to Roger. He does not need it; take my
word for that. The house is old, old as the hills, I reckon, judging
from its architecture, but very comfortable and neat as a lady’s
slipper. I saw no marks of poverty. The neighbors did not send in
anything while I was there, and we had a grand dinner. I dined with him,
you see, on solid silver, too, with wine and Malaga grapes; though come
to think of it, the grapes were a present from Frank, who sent a box
from New York. That Frank is living fast and doing the magnificent on a
great scale, I reckon, but I’d rather be Roger than he.”

“Didn’t Roger say anything to my note?” Magdalen asked, more interested
in that than in Frank and Malaga grapes.

“No, he didn’t, except, ‘Tell Magdalen I will answer this by and by,’”
Guy said; “but he seemed glad for you in one sense, and then again he
didn’t. I should say, if I am any judge of mankind, that he was afraid
that the gulf between the rich Miss Grey and the poor Mr. Irving was
wider than he could span, but I may be mistaken; at all events it is
sure to come right in time. As I said before, he is a splendid chap, and
you have my consent.”

Guy was very hopeful, very comforting, and Magdalen felt better after
this talk with him, and looked anxiously for the letter which Roger was
to send, and which came at last. A kind, brotherly letter, in which he
said how glad he was for her that she had found her friends, and
disclaimed all idea of her having ever brought trouble to him.

“You have been the source of the greatest happiness I have ever
enjoyed,” he wrote; “and I would give a dozen fortunes rather than not
have known you, and enjoyed you for the few years I called you mine, my
sister, my child, my _Magda_. Once I could have cursed the man who lured
my mother to her ruin, and cursed his children, too; but I did not then
dream that such a curse would cover the beautiful child of my adoption.
Heaven bless you, Magda, in _all_ your new relations! Heaven make you
happy in them as you deserve to be! Once I hoped I might see you at
Schodick, and I have thought how I would take you around the old farm,
and to the places hallowed by my mother’s footsteps, and pictured to
myself just what you would say, and just how you would look. But that
dream is over now. I cannot ask you to come. You would not care to, nor
your father care to have you. Remember me to him, if you like. Since I
know he is your father, I feel no bitterness toward him. Good-by! And
God bless you, and bring you, at last, to the Heaven where I hope to
find my little girl again!”

This was Roger’s letter, over which Magdalen wept tears of pain, mingled
with tears of joy,—joy, that he loved her still,—for only in that way
could she construe some portions of his letter; and pain that he should
write as if all intercourse between them was necessarily at an end; that
he was probably never to see her; she never to go to Schodick, when she
had within the last few days thought so much about it, and planned how
she could, perhaps, get her father and Alice to go with her, and thus
show Roger to them. That plan had failed, that castle fallen, and
Magdalen wept its fall, wondering what had come over Roger, and what he
meant by some portions of his letter. She did not know how, for a
moment, Roger had writhed under the knowledge that she was the daughter
of Arthur Grey; or how the fact had seemed at once to build an iron wall
between him and the girl he loved better than his life. Then, just as he
was recovering from the first great shock, and hope was beginning to
make itself heard again, Guy had unwittingly put his oar into the
troubled waters, and made them ten times worse. In his enthusiasm about
Magdalen, whom he extolled as all that was lovely and desirable, he gave
Roger the impression that between himself and Magdalen there already
existed an intimacy which would ripen into relations of a closer nature
than mere friends. And Roger listened to him with a face which told no
tales, and a heart which throbbed with jealousy and pain; and then,
feeling that he must know something definite, said to him, just as he
was leaving:

“Excuse me, Mr. Seymour, if I seem impertinent. From what you have said,
I gather that you hope, one day, to be more to Mr. Grey than his
sister’s nephew.”

And Guy, thinking only of Alice at that moment, had replied:

“You are something of a Yankee, I _guess_. But you are right in your
conjectures. I do hope to be more to Mr. Grey than his sister’s nephew;
but there’s no telling. Girls are riddles, you know.”

And then good-natured, kind-hearted Guy had gone his way, leaving in
Roger’s mind an impression which drifted his life farther and farther
away from Magdalen, whose heart went out after him now with a stronger
desire than it had ever known before.




                             CHAPTER XLVI.
                    THE CLOUDS BREAK OVER BEECHWOOD.


Acknowledged by every one as the daughter of the Greys, caressed and
idolized by Alice, petted by Aunt Penelope, and treated by Mr. Grey with
the utmost tenderness and deference, Magdalen would have been perfectly
happy but for one unfulfilled desire which was the skeleton at her side.
Between herself and Alice there was perfect confidence, while she was
learning daily more and more to respect her father, who omitted nothing
which could tend to win her love. To her mother she was the same gentle
nurse who never grew weary, but who sat hour after hour by the bedside,
repeating over and over again the story of the lost child, until Laura
knew it by heart and would correct her at once if she deviated ever so
little. There was a change gradually stealing over the invalid, a change
both in body and mind. She was far more quiet, and did not rock the
cradle as much as formerly, and once, when Magdalen had finished her
story for the second time that day, she said to her, “I think I have
heard it enough to know that baby is not in the crib, and never has
been. Take it away,—where I can’t rock it again and make Arthur so
nervous.”

They carried it out,—Alice and Magdalen together,—and put it away, each
feeling, as they left it, as if turning from a little grave. Laura never
spoke of it but once, and that was to her husband. Pointing to the place
where it had stood so long, she said with a smile, “Do you see it is
gone? It will never keep you awake again. Kiss me, Arthur, for I, too,
shall be gone before long.”

He kissed her, more than once, and put his arms about her, and felt how
small and thin she had grown; then looking into her face he saw the
change which only Magdalen had noticed. The burden was lifting, the
cloud was breaking, and Laura was passing away. There was no particular
disease, only a gradual breaking up of the springs of life, and as the
days grew longer and warmer she drooped more and more, until at last she
never left her bed all day, and rarely spoke except to Magdalen, who was
with her constantly. Sometimes it seemed as if there was a gleam of
reason struggling through the darkness which had shrouded her mind so
long, but it never went much further than such expressions as, “I think
I do remember the boy with the kind voice and soft blue eyes, to whom I
gave Magdalen, but I can’t quite make out how that Magdalen and this are
one.”

“I would not try now; I’d go to sleep and rest,” Magdalen would say, and
obedient to the voice she always heeded, Laura would grow quiet and fall
again into the deep slumber so common to her now.

In this way she lingered on for a few weeks, and then died quietly one
morning in early June, when her husband was in New York and only
Magdalen and Alice were with her. They knew that she was failing, but
they had not thought the end so near, and were greatly shocked when, at
a faint call from her, they hastened to her side and saw the pinched
look about her nose, the deep pallor about her lips, and the sweat-drops
upon her brow.

“Let me go for aunty,” Alice said, but her mother answered, “No, Alice,
there won’t be time. I’m going somewhere, going away from here, and I
want you and Magda to stay. It’s getting night, and the way is dark, and
life is very weary. Give me your hands, both of you, my children.”

She acknowledged Magdalen, and with a cry the young girl fell on her
knees beside the bed, exclaiming, “Mother, oh mother, you do know I am
your child. Call me that once more.”

But Laura’s mind was going out after one who was not there, and she only
whispered, “Where is Arthur? Allie, where is your father?”

“In New York,” was the reply, and a shadow flitted over the otherwise
placid face, as Laura rejoined, “Always in New York, the old, old story.
I wish he was here; tell him, will you, that I am gone, and before I
went I left word I was sorry I had troubled him so much. I’d like to
kiss him again. _Magda_, let me kiss you for him; give it to him for me,
and if I don’t look very bad, ask him to kiss me back, but not unless
I’m decent looking. He’s fastidious, and fancies pretty faces.”

She wound her arms about Magdalen’s neck and her cold lips gave the kiss
for Arthur. It was their last; they never moved again, and when Magdalen
unclasped the clinging arms from her neck and laid the poor head which
had ached so long back upon the pillow, she saw that her mother was
dead. They telegraphed at once for Mr. Grey, who reached home just at
nightfall. They had dressed Laura in white and laid her on the couch
with flowers in her hands and flowers on her pillow, and as if in answer
to her wishes, the old worn look had passed entirely from her face,
which looked smooth and fair and younger than the face of forty is wont
to look. Many traces of her soft, girlish beauty clung to her still, and
Mr. Grey, when first he went into the room and drew aside the muslin
which covered her face, started, and uttered an exclamation of surprise
at the unexpected beauty of his wife. He _did_ like pretty faces, and he
was glad that the Laura, who lay there dead, was like the girl he had
loved so passionately for a few brief months. The sight of her as she
was now with the placid look on her white face and the long eyelashes
shading her cheek, brought back something of his former love for Laura
Clayton, and kneeling beside her he wept tears of sorrow and regret for
the life which had been so full of sorrow.

“Laura, poor Laura,” he said, and his hand fondled the cold cheek which
would never again glow beneath his touch, “I wish you could know I am
here beside you, and how sorry I am for the past. Dear Laura, I wish you
had forgiven me before you died.”

“She did, father, and I am here to tell you what she said.”

It was Magdalen’s voice which spoke and Magdalen who knelt by the
weeping man, calling him father for the first time in her life! Passing
the open door she had heard his words of grief, and her first impulse
was to comfort him. It was very meet that there in the presence of the
dead mother she should call him father, and the name fell involuntarily
from her lips, sending a thrill of joy through his heart, and causing
him to look up as she knelt beside him and press her closely to his
heart.

“Bless you, Magdalen, my darling, my daughter; bless you for calling me
by that name. I have longed so for it, have wanted so to hear it. I
shall be a better man. I am a better man. I believe in Alice’s God, and
here by Laura’s side, in His presence and yours, I acknowledge my past
transgressions. I renounce my infidel notions, in which I really never
did believe. I wish to be forgiven. I pray that Jessie and Laura, both
of whom I wronged, may have met together in the Heaven to which I am
unfit to go.”

He was talking more to himself than to Magdalen, who, when he had
finished, told him of Laura’s last moments, omitting everything which
could give him pain and telling him only of the kindly message left for
him. “She wanted to kiss you,” Magdalen said, “and as you were not here,
she gave it to me for you. This was _mother’s kiss_ for my _father_;”
and Magdalen’s lips were pressed against the lips of Mr. Grey, who broke
down entirely and sobbed like a little child.

Could Laura have looked into that room, she surely would have been
satisfied with the tears and kisses given her by her husband, who sat
there until midnight, and whom the early morning found at her side. Had
she been always as young and fair and as dearly loved as when he first
called her his wife, he could not have seemed more sad or expressed more
sorrow than he did. Everything which could be done for a dead person was
done for her, and her funeral was arranged with as much care as if she
had been a blessing rather than a trouble to the house over whose
threshold they bore her, on a beautiful summer’s day, out to the little
family cemetery on the hillside, where they buried her beside the proud
old woman, who made no demur when the plebeian form was laid beside her.




                             CHAPTER XLVII.
                             BELL BURLEIGH.


There was to be a wedding in St. James’s Church, Boston, and the persons
most interested were Isabella Helena Burleigh and B. Franklin Irving,
whose bridal cards were sent to Beechwood one morning a few weeks after
Laura’s death. It was to be a most brilliant affair, and was creating
considerable excitement both in Belvidere and in Boston, where by virtue
of her boasted blood, which she traced back to Elizabeth’s time, and by
dint of an indomitable will, Miss Burleigh was really quite a belle. It
was her _blood_ which had won upon Mrs. Walter Scott, who said she
thought more of family pedigree than money, and Miss Burleigh’s pedigree
was without taint of any kind. So Mrs. Walter Scott was pleased, or
feigned to be so, and went to Boston, and took rooms at the Revere, at
fifteen dollars per day, and had her meals served in her private parlor;
and Frank brought down his own horses and carriage, and took another
suite of rooms, and paid at the rate of twenty dollars per day for all
his extravagances in the way of cigars and wine, and friends invited to
dinner. His evenings he spent with his bride-elect in her home on Beacon
Street, where everything betokened that the proprietors were not rich in
worldly goods, if they were in blood.

The Burleighs were very poor, else the spirited Bell, who had more
brains than heart, had never accepted Frank Irving. She knew just what
he was, and, alone with her young sister Grace, mimicked him, and called
him “green,” and when she was with him in company, shivered, and grew
hot and cold, and angry at some of his remarks, which betokened so
little sense.

He was gentlemanly to a certain extent, and knew all the ins and outs of
good society; but he was not like the men with whom Bell Burleigh had
associated all her life; not like the men she respected for what was in
their heads rather than in their purse. But as these men had thus far
been unattainable, and the coffers at home were each year growing lower
and lower as her father grew older and older, Bell swallowed all
sentiment, and the ideas she had once had of a husband to whom she could
look up, and accepted Frank Irving and Millbank.

But not without her price. She made Frank _pay_ for her _blood_ and
charms, and pay munificently, too. First, one hundred thousand dollars
were to be settled on herself, to do with as she pleased. Next, sister
Grace and her father were both to live with her at Millbank, and Frank
was to clothe and support Grace as if she were his own sister. Then, her
brother Charlie’s bills at college must be paid, and after he was
graduated he must come to Millbank as his home until he went into
business.

These were Bell’s _terms_, and Frank winced a little and hesitated, and
when she had told him to take time to consider, he took it and did
consider, and decided that it would not pay, and went for a few weeks to
New York, where at the Fifth Avenue Hotel he came again upon the
Burleighs. Bell knew just how to manage him, and ere he had been there
three days he was as much in love with her as ever, and madly jealous of
every one who paid her marked attentions. The _price_ she asked seemed
as nothing compared with herself, and one evening after she had been
unusually fascinating and brilliant, and had snubbed him dreadfully, he
wrote a note accepting her terms, and begging her to name an early day
and put him out of torture. In her dressing-gown, with her own hair
falling about her shoulders and her braids and curls of false hair lying
on the bureau, Bell read the note, and felt for a moment that she
despised and hated the man who wrote it, just because he had acceded to
her unreasonable demands.

“I wish he had decided otherwise. I would almost rather die than marry
him,” she thought, while her eyes put on a darker look and her face a
paler hue.

Then she thought of the home on Beacon Street, of the pinching poverty,
the efforts to keep up appearances, of her father growing so old, and of
herself, not so young as she was once,—twenty-eight, the Bible said,
though she passed for twenty-five; then she thought of Charlie, her
young brother, and glanced at Grace, her only sister, who lay sleeping
so quietly before her. All the love Bell Burleigh had was centred in her
father, her brother, and in Grace, the fair young girl, with soft blue
eyes and golden hair, who was as unlike her sister as possible, and who
was awakened by Bell’s tears on her face, and Bell’s kisses on her brow.

“What is it, Bell?” she asked, sitting up in bed, and rubbing her eyes
in a sleepy kind of way.

Bell did not say, “I have sold myself for you.” But—“Rejoice, Grace,
that we are never again to know what poverty means; never to pinch and
contrive and save and do things we are ashamed of in order to keep up. I
am going to marry Mr. Irving, and you are all to live with me at
Millbank.”

Grace was wide awake now, and looking earnestly in her sister’s face for
a moment, said:

“_You_ marry that Mr. Irving, _you_, Bell? There is not a thing in
common between you, unless you love him. Do you?”

“Hush, Grace; don’t speak of _love_ to me,” and Bell’s voice had in it a
hard, bitter tone. “I parted company with that sentiment years ago,
before you could understand. You have heard—of—Dr. Patterson, missionary
to India? I would once have gone with him to the ends of the earth, but
mother said I was too young, too giddy, and the _Board_ thought so, too.
I was not quite seventeen, and I defied those old fogy ministers to
their faces, and when they asked me so coldly if I supposed myself good
enough to be a missionary, I answered that I was going for the love I
bore to _Fred_, and not to be a missionary, or because I thought myself
good as they termed goodness. And so it was broken off, and Fred went
without me, and as they said he must have a wife, he took a tall,
red-haired woman many years his senior, but who, to her other
qualifications, added the fact that she was a _professor_, and believed
herself called to a missionary life. She is dead now, and her grave is
on the banks of the Ganges. But Fred’s life and mine have drifted widely
apart; I am no wife for him now. I have grown too hard, and reckless,
and selfish, and too fond of the world, to share his home in India. And
so all I have to remind me of the past as connected with him is _one_
letter, the last he ever wrote me, and a lock of his hair,—black hair,
not _tow color_,” and Bell smiled derisively, while Grace knew that she
was thinking of Frank, whose hair, though not exactly tow color, was far
from being black.

Bell paused a moment, and then went on:

“You know how poor we are, and how we struggle to keep up, and how much
father owes. Our home is mortgaged for more than it is worth, and so is
every article of any value in it. I should like brains if I could get
them set off with money, but as I cannot, I have concluded to take the
money. I have counted the cost. I know what I am about. I shall be Mrs.
Franklin Irving, and pay our debts, and keep you all with
me,—and—be—happy.”

She said the last very slowly, and there was a look of pain in the eyes
of this girl who had once thought to be a missionary’s wife, and who had
in her many elements of a noble woman. She did not tell Grace the price
she had put upon herself That was something she would rather her young
sister should not know, and when Grace, whose ideas of marriage were
more what Bell’s had been in the days of the Fred Patterson romance,
tried to expostulate, she stopped her short with,—“It’s of no use; my
mind is made up. I have told you what I have because I knew you would
wonder at my choice, and I wanted you to know some of the causes which
led me to make it. I want your love, your respect, your confidence,
Grace, I want—”

Bell’s lip quivered a little, and she bowed her dark head over her
sister’s golden one, and cried a little; then sat erect, and the old
proud, independent look came back to her face, and Bell Burleigh was
herself again,—the calm, resolute, cool-headed woman of the world, who
had sold herself for money and a home.

They met in the wide entrance hall to the dining-room next morning,
Frank and Bell, and while he stood for a moment, waiting for his paper,
she said a word to him, and they walked together into breakfast an
engaged pair, with quite as much love and sentiment between them as
exists in many and many an engagement which the world pronounces so
eligible and brilliant.

Bell had some shopping to do that morning, and Frank did not see her
again till just before dinner, when he met and escorted her to his
mother’s private parlor, where she was to receive the priceless boon of
Mrs. Walter Scott’s blessing. That lady had heard the news of her son’s
engagement with a good deal of equanimity, considering there was no
money to be expected. Like many people of humble birth, Mrs. Walter
Scott set a high value on family and blood, and, as Bell’s were both of
the first water, she accepted her as her future daughter-in-law, wishing
to herself that she was not quite so independent, and resolute, and
strong-minded, as the absence of these qualities would render her so
much more susceptible to subjugation, for Mrs. Walter Scott meant to
subjugate her.

As Mrs. Franklin Irving, she would, of course, be the nominal mistress
of Millbank; but it would be only nominal. Mrs. Walter Scott would be
the real head; the one to whom every body would defer, even her
daughter-in-law. But she said nothing of this to Frank. She merely told
him she was willing, that Miss Burleigh was a girl of rare talent and
attainments that she had a great deal of mind, and intellect, and
literary taste, and would shine in any society.

Frank did not care a picayune for Bell’s talents, or attainments, or
literary taste. Indeed he would rather of the two that she had less of
these virtues, and did not overshadow him so completely as he knew she
did. Still he was in love with her, or thought he was, and extolled her
to his mother, but did not speak of the hundred thousand dollars as a
marriage settlement, or of the arrangement about the Judge and Charlie
and Grace. He would let these things adjust themselves; and he had faith
in Bell’s ability to manage her own matters quietly, and without his
aid.

She was looking very beautiful when he led her to his mother, arrayed in
her heavy purple silk with the white ermine on the waist and sleeves,
and Mrs. Walter Scott thought what a regal-looking woman she was. There
was a deep flush on her cheek and a sparkle in her black eyes, and her
white teeth glittered between the full, pouting lips which just touched
Mrs. Walter Scott’s hand, as she stood to receive the blessing.

When they went into dinner that night after the blissful interview,
there was about Frank a certain consciousness of ownership in the
beautiful girl who walked beside him and on whose finger a superb
diamond was shining, the seal of her engagement, and those who noticed
them particularly, and to whom Miss Burleigh was known, guessed at the
new relations existing between the two.

This was in the winter, and before Magdalen’s parentage was discovered.
Since then the course of true love had run pretty smoothly for once, and
Frank had only felt a single pang, and that when he heard who Magdalen
Lennox was. Then for a moment all his former love for her came back, and
Bell Burleigh, who chanced to be at Millbank for a day or so, wondered
what had happened to him that he was so absent-minded and indifferent to
her blandishments. She was very gracious to him now, feeling that there
was something due him for all his generosity to her, and as she could
not give him love in its truest sense, she would give him civility at
least and kindliness of manner and a show of affection. So when she saw
the shadow on his face, and with a woman’s intuition felt that something
more than mere business matters had brought it there, she spoke to him
in her softest manner and sang him her sweetest songs and wore his
favorite dress, and twice laid her hand on his, and asked what was the
matter that he looked so gloomy; had he heard, bad news? He told her no,
and kissed her forehead, and felt his blood tingle a little at this
unusual demonstration from his _fiancée_, and so fickle and easily
soothed was he, that beneath the influence of Bell’s smile the shadow
began to lift, and in the letter of congratulation which he wrote to
Magdalen there was nothing but genuine sympathy and rejoicing that she
had found her home at last and a sister like Alice Grey.

He did not tell of his engagement; he was a little ashamed to have
Magdalen know that he was so soon “off with the old love and on with the
new;” and so she did not suspect it until every arrangement was complete
and the day for the bridal fixed. Great was the expenditure for silks
and satins and laces and jewelry, and not only New York and Boston, but
Paris, too, was drawn upon to furnish articles of clothing rare and
expensive enough for a bride of Bell Burleigh’s fastidious taste and
extravagant notions. Frank, who grew more and more proud of his
conquest, and consequently more and more in love with his bride-elect,
insisted upon furnishing the bridal trousseau, and bade her spare
neither money nor pains, but get whatever she wanted at whatever cost.
And Bell accepted his money, and spent it so lavishly that all Boston
was alive with gossip and wonder. There were to be six bridesmaids, and
three of them were to accompany the happy pair for a week or so at
Frank’s expense; and Frank never flinched a hair, even when presented
with the Paris bill, in which were charges of one hundred dollars and
more for just one article of underclothing. All Bell’s linen came ready
made from Paris, and such tucks and ruffles and puffs and flutings and
laces had never been seen before in Boston in so great profusion. And
Bell bore herself like a queen, who had all her life been accustomed to
Parisian luxury. There was no doubt of her gracing Millbank or any other
home, and Frank each time he saw her felt more than repaid for the piles
and piles of money which he paid out for her.

At Millbank there was also dressmaking proceeding on a grand scale, and
though Mrs. Walter Scott’s wardrobe differed somewhat from Bell’s,
inasmuch as it was soberer and older,—the silks were just as heavy and
rich, and the laces just as expensive. New furniture, new table-linen,
and new silver came almost daily to Millbank, together with new
pictures, for one of which the sum of two thousand dollars was paid.
When old Hester Floyd heard of that she could keep quiet no longer, but
vowed “she would go to Belvidere and visit Mrs. Peter Slocum, who was a
distant connection, and would be glad to have her a spell, especially as
she meant to pay her way.”

When Hester resolved to do a thing she generally did it, and as she was
resolved to go to Belvidere she at once set herself to prepare for the
journey.




                            CHAPTER XLVIII.
             THE WEDDING, AND HESTER FLOYD’S ACCOUNT OF IT.


Roger had written to Frank, congratulating him upon his approaching
marriage, but declining to be present at the wedding. He wished to know
as little as possible of the affairs at Millbank, and tried to dissuade
Hester from her visit to Mrs. Slocum. But Hester _would_ go, and three
days before the great event came off she was installed in Mrs. Slocum’s
best chamber, and had presented that worthy woman with six bottles of
canned fruit, ten yards of calico, and an old coat of Aleck’s, which,
she said, would cut over nicely for Johnny, Mrs. Slocum’s youngest boy.
After these presents, Hester felt that she was not “spunging,” as she
called it, and settled herself quietly to visit, and to reconnoitre, and
watch the proceedings at Millbank. And there was enough to occupy her
time and keep her in a state of great excitement.

The house had been painted brown, and Hester inveighed against that, and
scolded about the shrubbery, which had been removed, and cried a little
over the trees which, at Bell’s instigation, had been cut down to open a
finer view of the river from the rooms appropriated to the bride. Into
these rooms Hester at last penetrated, as well as into all parts of the
house. Mrs. Walter Scott had gone to Boston, and Frank had gone with
her. Hester saw them as they drove by Mrs. Slocum’s in their elegant new
carriage, with their white-gloved colored driver on the box, and she had
represented her blood as “bilin’ like a caldron kettle, to see them as
had no business a-ridin’ through the country and spending Roger’s
money.”

She knew where they were going, and that the coast was clear at
Millbank, and with Mrs. Slocum, who was on good terms with the
housekeeper, she went there that afternoon and saw “such sights as her
eyes never expected to see while she lived.”

“I mean to write to Magdalen and let her know just what carryin’s on
there is here,” she said to Mrs. Slocum; and she commenced a letter that
night, telling Magdalen where she was, and what she was there for, and
not omitting to speak of the “things” she had brought, and which would
pay for what little she ate for a week or two.

“Such alterations!” she wrote. “The house as brown as my hands, and a
picter in it that cost two thousan’ dollars, the awfullest daub, I
reckon, that ever was got up. Why, I had rather a hundred times have
that picter in my room of Putnam goin’ in after the wolf; that means
somethin’, and this one don’t. But the rooms for the bride, they are
just like a show-house, I’m sure, with their painted walls and _frisky_
work, I b’lieve, they call it, and the _lam-kins_ at the winders, fifty
dollars a winder, as I’m a livin’ woman, and a naked boy in one of ’em
holdin’ a pot of flowers on his head; and then her _boode’r_ or anything
under heavens you are a mind to call that little room at the end of the
upper south hall, and which opens out of her sleepin’ room. There’s a
glass as long as she is set in a recess like, and in the door opposite
is a lookin’-glass, and in the door on t’other side,—three
lookin’-glasses in all, so that you can see yourself before and behind
and beside, and silk ottermans, and divans and marble shelves and
drawers, and a chair for her to sit in and be dressed, and she’s got a
French waitin’-maid, right from Paris, they say, and some of her
underclothes cost a hundred dollars apiece, think of that, when three
yards of factory would make plenty good enough and last enough sight
longer. I’m glad I don’t have to iron ’em; they’ve got a flutin’-iron
they paid thirty dollars for, and Miss Franklin’s bed, that is to be, is
hung with silk curtains. I should s’pose she’d want a breath of air; the
dear knows I should; and one of the rooms they’ve turned into a picter
gallery, and the likenesses of the _Burleighs_ is there now, ‘cause Mrs.
Franklin must have ’em to look at. There’s her granny, a decent-lookin’
woman enough, with powdered hair, and her husband took when he was
younger, and her mother in her weddin’ close, exactly the fashion, I
remember, and her father and herself when she was younger by a good many
years than she is now, for them as has seen her says she’s thirty if
she’s a day, and Frank ain’t quite twenty-eight.”

There was a break just here in Hester’s epistle. She had decided to
remain with Mrs. Slocum until after the party which was to be given for
the bride at Millbank as soon as she returned from her wedding trip, and
so she concluded not to finish her letter until she had seen and could
report the doings. The wedding day was faultlessly fair; not a cloud
broke the deep blue of the summer sky, and the air had none of the
sultry heat of July, but was soft and balmy, and pure from the effects
of the thunder-shower of the previous day. If the bride be blessed on
whom the sun shines, Bell Burleigh was surely blessed and ought to have
been happy. There was no cloud on her brow, no brooding shadow of regret
in her dark eyes, and if she sent a thought across the seas after the
Fred whose life of toil she would once have shared so gladly, it did not
show itself upon her face, which belied Hester’s hint of thirty years,
and was all aglow with excitement. She made a beautiful bride, and the
length of her train was for days and days the theme of gossip among the
crowd who saw it as she walked from the carriage to the church upon the
carpets spread down for the occasion. She wore no ornaments, but
flowers. Her diamonds, and pearls, and rubies, and amethysts were
reserved for other occasions, and she looked very simple and elegant and
self-possessed, and made her responses in a firmer, clearer voice than
Frank. He was nervous, and thought of Magdalen, and was glad she and
Alice had made their mother’s recent death an excuse for not being
present, and wondered if her voice would have been as loud and steady as
Bell’s when she said, “I, Isabel, take thee, Franklin,” and so forth. On
the whole, the occasion was a trying one for him; his gloves were too
tight, and his boots were tighter and made him want to scream every time
he stepped, they hurt his feet so badly. He took them off when he
returned from the church, and thus relieved, felt easier, and could see
how beautiful his new wife was, and how well she bore her honors, and
felt proud and happy, and did not think again of Magdalen, but rather
what a lucky fellow he was to have all the money he wanted and such a
bride as Bell.

They were going West for a week or two, then back to Millbank for a few
days, and then to Saratoga or the sea-side, just where the fancy led
them. Mrs. Walter Scott returned to Millbank and sent out a few cards to
the _élite_ of the town, the Johnsons, and Markhams, and Woodburys, and
the clergyman and her family physician. As for the _nobodys_, they were
not expected to call, and they consoled themselves with invidious
remarks and watching the proceedings.

On Sunday the Irving pew was graced by Mrs. Walter Scott, who wore a new
bonnet and a silk which rustled with every step. She was very devout
that day, and made a large thank-offering for her new daughter-in-law, a
crisp ten-dollar bill, given so that all who cared could see and know it
was a ten. She did not see Hester Floyd until service was out,—then she
started a little as the old lady stepped into the aisle before her, but
offered her hand cordially, and felt that she was very good, and very
pious, and very democratic to walk out of church in close conversation
with Hester, whom she invited to come and see the changes they had made
in the house, and stop to tea, if she liked, with the housekeeper.

Mrs. Walter Scott had nothing to fear from Hester now, and could afford
to be very gracious, but the old lady was neither deceived nor elated
with her attention. She had been to the house, she said, rather crisply,
and seen all she wanted to, and she did think they might have let some
of the rooms alone and not fixed ’em up like a play-house, and she’d
cover up that naked boy in Mrs. Franklin’s room before she got there,
for if she was a modest woman, as was to be hoped, she’d feel ashamed.
And then, having reached the new carriage, with its white-gloved driver,
the two women said good-day to each other, and Mrs. Walter Scott’s
dove-colored silk was put carefully into the carriage by the footman,
and the door was closed and the two shining horses were off like the
wind, leaving Hester to watch the cloud of dust and the flash of the
wheels which marked the progress of the fast-moving vehicle.

The particulars of this interview were faithfully recorded for
Magdalen’s benefit, the old lady breaking the Sabbath for the sake of
“writing while the thing was fresh in her mind” and she could do it
justice.

Ten days more went by, and then it was reported in the street that the
workmen in the shoe-shop and factory were to have a holiday on Thursday
in honor of their master’s return to Millbank with his bride. It was
whispered, too, that in his letter to his foreman Frank had hinted that
some kind of a demonstration on his arrival would be very appropriate
and acceptable, and if his agents would see to it he would defray any
expense they might incur for him. Some of the workmen laughed, and some
sneered, and some said openly they had no demonstration to make, but all
accepted the holiday willingly enough, and a few of the young men, with
all the boys, decided to get up a bonfire and fireworks, on a large
scale, inasmuch as the bill was to be paid by “the Gov.”

Accordingly a hundred dollars’ worth of fireworks were ordered from
Springfield, and Frank, who came about eight o’clock, was greeted with a
rocket which went hissing into the air and fell in sparks of fire just
over his shoe-shop, the shingles of which were dry with age and the
summer heat. There was a crowd after all to honor him, and an impromptu
band, which played “Hail to the Chief,” and “Come, Haste to the
Wedding,” and finished up with a grand flourish of “Dixie,” to which
many bare feet kept time upon the lawn in front of Millbank. A
collation, which Hester in her journal-letter called a “collection,” had
been prepared for them on the grounds, and the small boys ate themselves
almost sick on ice-cream and raisins, and then halloed with might and
main for the bride, who appeared, leaning on her husband’s arm, smiling
and bowing, and offering her hand to be shaken, while all the while she
was wondering if “the miserable little wretches hadn’t warts or some
worse disease which she would catch of them.”

The collation over, the bridal party returned to the house, and the
crowd went back to their fireworks, to which the tired and slightly
disgusted Bell hardly gave a look. She had the headache, and went early
to her room, and closing her blinds to shut out the glare of the blue
and red lights which annoyed her terribly, she fell asleep, and was
dreaming of the missionary Fred when the cry of “Fire, Fire,” aroused
her, and Frank looked in with a white, frightened face, telling her the
large shoe-shop was on fire, and bidding her not to be alarmed. Some
sparks from the first rocket sent up had fallen on the dry roof of the
shoe-shop, and set it on fire, the flames creeping under the shingles,
and making great headway before they were discovered. It was a long time
since there had been a fire in Belvidere, and the excited people hardly
knew how to act. Roger had always been tolerably well prepared for such
an emergency, but matters at Millbank were managed differently now from
what they were when he was master there. The rotary pump was out of
order, the engine would not work well at all, and after half an hour or
more of orders and counter-orders, of running to and fro, and
accomplishing but little, it was certain that nothing could save the
huge building, whose roof was one mass of flame, and from whose windows
a light was shining brighter than any bonfire ever yet kindled in honor
of a bride. When Frank had hinted at demonstrations, for which he would
pay, he never dreamed of a bonfire like this, where jets of flame rose
far into the sky and shone across the river upon the hills beyond, and
made the village as light as day. Bell never went to fires, she said to
Mrs. Walter Scott, who, in her dressing-gown, with her shawl over her
head, looked in upon her daughter-in-law on her way to join the
multitude in the streets. She was too thoroughly city bred to go to
fires, and she saw every member of the household depart,—her
bridesmaids, sister Grace and all; and then, as from her bed she could
see the whole, she lay down among her pillows and rather enjoyed
watching the flames, as they attacked first one part of the building and
then another, making the sight every moment more beautiful and grand. It
never occurred to her how much of her husband’s fortune might be
consuming before her very eyes, and when toward morning he came up to
her, pale, smoke-stained, and burned, she merely asked what time it was,
and how he could bear to stay so long where he could do no good.

Frank’s first thought, when he saw the fire, was of Holt and the
insurance. During his wedding tour, he had heard that the company in
which his shop was insured had failed, and he had telegraphed at once to
Holt “to see to it, and insure in another company.” Since his return he
had not thought of the matter until now, when something told him that
his orders had been neglected, and that if the building burned his loss
would be heavy. Taking off his coat, he had worked like a hero, and done
much to inspirit his men, who, encouraged by his intrepidity, had
followed wherever he led and done whatever he bade them do. But it was
all in vain, and Frank went back to Millbank a poorer man by many
thousands than the setting of the sun had found him, while a hundred
people or more were thrown out of employment, and suddenly found
themselves with nothing to do.

In this emergency their thoughts turned to Roger. They had heard that a
large shoe manufactory was in process of erection at Schodick, and that
Roger was to have the superintendence of it, and never before had there
been so heavy a mail sent from Belvidere as there was the day following
the fire. More than forty men wrote to Roger, telling him of the
disaster, asking for situations under him, and offering to work for less
than they had been receiving. To many of these favorable answers were
returned, and the consequence was that the tide of emigration from
Belvidere to Schodick set in at once, and a number of Frank’s houses
were left tenantless on his hands. The party, however, came off the
following week, and servants were imported from New York, with cake and
flowers and fruit, and a band came out from Springfield, and lights were
hung in every tree upon the lawn and boys hired to watch them, for Frank
had learned a lesson from the still smouldering ruins of his shop, and
was exceedingly nervous and uncomfortable on the subject of fires and
lights, and read a lesson on caution to his mother and the servants and
all the family, _save_ his wife. There was something in her black eyes
which prevented his taking liberties with her, and her lamp was suffered
to remain in close proximity to the lace curtains of her room, and he
did not say a word.

Roger wrote to his nephew immediately after the fire, expressing his
sorrow, and consoling him by saying he could afford to lose the shop and
still be the richest man in the county. Frank thought of the piles and
piles of money he had spent, and wondered what Roger would say could he
know of all his extravagances. But Roger did not know, and his letter
comforted Frank, who, after reading it, felt better than he had before
since the fire, and who was quite like himself on the night when, with
his bride, he stood to receive the congratulations of his dear four
hundred friends who came from Boston and Worcester and Springfield and
Hartford and New York, but not many from Belvidere. A few only of the
citizens were considered good enough to enter the charmed presence and
take the white hand on which a thousand-dollar ring was shining. Bell
wore her diamonds that night, her husband’s bridal present, for which
ten thousand dollars were paid, and she shone and flashed and sparkled,
and turned her proud head proudly, and never spoke to Frank when she
could help it, but talked instead with her old friends from
Boston,—scholars and professors, whose discourse she found far more
congenial than Frank’s commonplaces were.

It was a grand affair, and old Hester, who was at the house, and from
the kitchen and side passages saw much that was going on, added to her
journal a full account of it, after having described the fire, which she
said was “just a judgment from the Lord.” Hester had rather enjoyed the
fire, and felt as if justice was being meted out to _Mrs. Walter Scott_,
who cried and wrung her hands, and reproached the people for standing
idle and seeing her son’s property burned before their eyes. Hester
ached to give her a piece of her mind, but contented herself with saying
in her presence, “that folks didn’t seem very anxious. She guessed if it
had been Roger’s shop they’d have stepped more lively, and not sat on
the fence, a whole batch on ’em, doin’ nothin’.”

“I _was_ a little mad at ’em,” she wrote to Magdalen, “and felt pretty
bad when the ruff tumbled in, but I didn’t screech as _that woman_
(meaning Mrs. Walter Scott) did. She nigh about fainted away, and they
carried her into Miss Perkins’s house and flung water in her face till
them curls of hern were just nothin’ but strings. T’other one, Miss
Franklin, wasn’t there, and I heard that she lay abed the whole time and
watched it from the winder. That’s a nice wife for you. Oh, I tell you,
he’ll get his pay for takin’ the property from Roger, and givin’ such a
party as he did, and only invitin’ fust cut in town, and not all of
_them_. There was Miss Jenks, and Miss Smith and Miss Spencer s’posed of
course they’d have an invite, and Miss Jenks got her a new gown and had
it made in Hartford, and then wan’t bid; and if you’ll believe, that
sneakin,’ low-lived, ill-begotten horse-jockey of a _Holt_ was there,
and his wife, with a yeller gownd and blue flower stuck in the middle of
her forehead. How he came to be bid nobody knows, only they say he and
Frank is thick as molasses, and agree on the hoss question. Madam’s
sister was there, a pretty enough lookin’ girl with yellow curls and
blue eyes, and it’s talked that she’s to live there, and the whole
coboodle of ’em. A nice time they’ll have with Mrs. Walter Scott, who
holds her head so high that her neck must sometimes ache. You or’to see
’em ride on horseback to Millbank; Miss Franklin in black velvet, her
sister in blue, and even old madam has gone at it, and I seen her a
canterin’ by on a chestnut mare that cost the dear knows what. Think
on’t, a woman of her age, with a round hat and feather, ridin’ a hoss.
It’s just ridiculous, I call it. I’m goin’ home to-morrow, for Roger and
Aleck is gettin’ kind of uneasy. Roger is a growin’ man. He’s got some
agency in the mill to Schodick and the shop, and he’s makin’ lots of
money, and folks look up to him and consult him till he’s the fust man
in town. I wish you two would come together someday, and I can’t help
thinkin’ you will. Nothin’ would suit me better, though I was hard on
you once about the will. I was about crazy them days, but that’s all got
along with, and so good-by.

                                                         “HESTER FLOYD.”

  “There goes the quality from Millbank out to have a picnic, and the
  young madam is ridin’ with another man. Nice doin’s so soon, though I
  don’t blame her for bein’ sick of Frank. He’s growing real fat and
  pussy-like, and twists up them few white hairs about his mouth till
  they look like a shoemaker’s waxed end.

                                     “Yours again to command,
                                                             “H. FLOYD.”




                             CHAPTER XLIX.
                      HOW THEY LIVED AT MILLBANK.


Mrs. Walter Scott knew nothing of the hundred thousand dollars settled
upon Bell, or of the arrangement for the entire family to live
henceforth at Millbank. She was well pleased, however, to have Judge
Burleigh and Grace and Charlie there for a few days, with other guests
from Boston and New York. They were a part of the wedding festivities,
and she enjoyed the _éclat_ of having so many young people of style and
distinction in the house, and enjoyed showing them off at church and in
the street. She enjoyed the grand dinners, too, which occupied three
hours and for which the ladies dressed so elaborately, the bride wearing
something new each day, and astonishing the servants with the length of
her train and the size of her hoops, and she enjoyed for a time the
dance and the song, and hilarity in the evening, but she began at last
to grow weary of it all, and to sigh for a little quiet; and greatly to
Frank’s surprise and Bell’s delight, she gave up the trip to Saratoga,
and saw the bridal party depart without her one morning a few days after
the party.

The United States was their destination, and the town was soon teeming
with gossip of the bride who sported so exquisite jewelry and wore so
magnificent dresses and snubbed her husband so mercilessly. Frank’s
turn-out, too, was commented on and admired, and he had the satisfaction
of knowing that his carriage and his horses were the finest in town; but
for any genuine domestic happiness he enjoyed, he might as well have
been without a wife as with one.

One day Bell expressed a desire for a glass of water from the spring on
the grounds of the Clarendon, and as she knew she was exquisitely
dressed, and sure to create a sensation all along the street, she
started with Grace and her husband for the spring. The Clarendon was not
full, though it had the reputation of entertaining the very _crème de la
crème_, those who preferred cool shades, and pure air and fresh
furniture and quiet, to the glare and crowd and heat and fashion farther
down town. There were but few on the broad piazza that afternoon, but at
these Bell looked curiously, especially at the two young ladies who were
standing with their backs to her, and whom she at once decided to be
somebody. Both wore deep mourning, and one was fair with chestnut hair,
while the braids of the other were dark and glossy and abundant. A
white-haired man and middle-aged woman were sitting near them, and a
tall, fine-looking young man was standing by the shorter of the young
ladies, and evidently describing something which greatly interested all,
for peals of laughter were occasionally heard as the story proceeded,
and the girl with the chestnut hair turned her head a little more toward
Bell, and also toward Frank. There was a violent start on his part, and
then he suggested that they return to their hotel. But Bell insisted
upon going up the hill and occupying some vacant chairs upon the piazza.
She was tired, and it looked so cool and pleasant there, she said in
that tone of voice which Frank always obeyed, and with a beating heart
he gave her his arm and led her up the steep bank and put her in her
chair and brought another for Grace, and fidgeted about and managed to
keep his back toward the group which he knew was watching him. The hum
of their voices had ceased as he drew near with his magnificent bride,
who in her diamonds and costly array presented so striking a contrast to
the two plainly-dressed young ladies, whom Bell thought so beautiful,
wondering greatly who they were. Frank _knew_ who they were, and stood
an awkward moment and tried not to see them; then with a great gulp, in
which he forced down far more emotion than his wife ever gave him credit
for possessing, he turned toward them, accidentally as it seemed, and
uttering a well-feigned exclamation of surprise went forward to meet
Alice Grey and Magdalen.

“Speak of angels and you hear the rustle of their wings,” Guy said, when
the first words of greeting were over. “I was talking of you, or rather
of Mrs. Irving, whom I saw at the hop last night, and whose beauty and
dress I was describing to these rustic country girls.”

“Oh, yes, certainly. I should like to present my wife to you,” Frank
said, his spirits rising as they always did when his wife was
complimented.

He was proud of her, and if she allowed it, would have been fond of her,
too; and he felt a thrill of satisfaction and pleasure that she was
looking so well and bore herself so regally as he led her to his friends
and introduced her as “My wife, Mrs. Irving.”

Bell had heard of the Greys and knew that Alice and Magdalen were fully
her equals, and her manner was very soft and gracious towards them as
she expressed her pleasure in meeting them. Frank brought her chair for
her and placed it between Alice and Magdalen, and held her parasol, and
leaned over her, and admired her so much as almost to forget the
circumstances under which, he had last seen Magdalen. Bell was very
lady-like, very gentle, and very bright and witty withal, and the Greys
were perfectly charmed with her, and wondered how she could have married
Frank, who in point of intellect was so greatly her inferior.

For two or three weeks the Greys remained at Saratoga, and during that
time they saw a great deal of the Irvings, while between Bell and the
Misses Grey there sprang up a strong liking, which was very strange,
considering how unlike they were in almost everything. Once Frank spoke
to Magdalen of Roger, who, he said, was getting on famously, both as to
money and reputation.

“Why don’t you two marry?” he asked abruptly. “You ought to. There’s
nothing in the way that I can see.”

Ere Magdalen could reply, they were joined by Alice, but Frank had
detected that in her manner which convinced him that her love for Roger
was unchanged.

“Then why the plague don’t they marry?” he said to himself. “It’s
Roger’s fault, I know. He’s afraid she is not willing. I mean to write
and tell him she is. I owe them both something, and that’s the way I’ll
pay it;” and that afternoon Frank did commence a letter to Roger, but he
never finished it, for dinner came on, and after it a drive, and then a
letter from his mother urging his immediate return, as the hands at the
mill were conducting badly, many of them leaving to go to Schodick, and
others taking advantage of his absence, and a drunken overseer.

Accordingly, the bridal pair went back to Millbank, and Grace was with
them, and Charlie too; while Mr. Burleigh, who had been disposing of his
affairs in Boston, came in a few days, and Mrs. Walter Scott heard Mrs.
Franklin tell the servant to see that everything was in order in “Judge
Burleigh’s room; you know which it is, the one at the end of the hall,
adjoining Charlie’s.”

This looked as if there was an understanding between Mrs. Franklin and
Katy with regard to rooms, while the quantity of baggage which came from
the depot in the express wagon looked very much as if the Burleighs had
come for good, with no intention of leaving. This was a condition of
things of which Mrs. Walter Scott did not approve; but there was
something in the gleam of Mrs. Bell’s black eyes which warned her to be
careful what she said. She was a little afraid of Bell and so kept quiet
until she heard from her own maid that “the old gentleman” was putting
his books on the shelves, which, unknown to her, had been conveyed into
his room, and was arranging a lot of _stones_, and _snails_, and
_birds_. Then she could keep still no longer, but attacked her son with
the question:

“Are _all_ the Burleighs to live here in future? I did not suppose you
married the entire family.”

Frank had looked forward to a time when some such question would be
propounded to him, and was glad it had come. Once he had been afraid of
his mother, and he was still a good deal in awe of her and her opinions,
but upstairs was a lady whom he feared more, though she had never spoken
to him except in the mildest, softest manner, and he wisely resolved to
let his mother know the worst which had befallen her, and told her, as
gently as possible, and with the tone of one who was communicating a
piece of good news, that the Burleighs were a rather singular family,
very strongly attached to each other; yes, _very_ strongly attached,
that they never had been separated, and that Bell had accepted him only
on condition that they should not be separated, but live together at
Millbank as they had done at Boston.

There was intense scorn in Mrs. Walter Scott’s eyes, and in her voice,
as she said, “And so you have taken upon yourself the maintenance of
four instead of one!”

“Why, no,—not exactly,—that is,—Judge Burleigh and Charlie, and—yes, and
Charlie—”

Frank was getting matters somewhat confused, and did not quite know how
to make it clear to his mother’s mind that Charlie would only trouble
them till he was set up in business, and that Judge Burleigh’s society
and the pleasure of having so polished and agreeable a gentleman in the
house was a sufficient compensation for any expense he might be to them;
but she understood him at last, and knew that the Judge and Charlie were
there for good, and the rooms they occupied had been fitted up expressly
for them without a reference to her or her wishes in the matter. Had she
known of the hundred thousand made over to Bell she would have gone mad.
As it was, she flew into a towering passion, accusing Frank of being in
leading-strings and henpecked, and threatening to leave and go back to
New York, as she presumed he wished she would. Frank did not wish any
such thing. His mother was more necessary to him now than before his
marriage, for he was generally sure of her sympathy, which was more than
he could say of his wife. So he soothed and quieted her as best he
could, and when she referred to his recent loss by fire, and asked how
he could burden himself with so large a family, he told her a lie, and
said he should be able to recover a part of the insurance, and that even
if he did not, his income was sufficient to warrant his present style of
living, and she need have no fears for him; or if she had, he would
_settle_ something upon her at once, so that in case _he_ failed
entirely she would not be penniless. This was a happy thought, and Mrs.
Walter Scott consented to be mollified and let the Burleighs remain in
quiet in consideration of twenty-five thousand dollars in bonds and
mortgages and railroad stock which Frank agreed to give her, and which
he did convey that very day. She had at first asked for fifty thousand,
but had agreed to be satisfied with twenty-five, and Frank went to his
dinner a poorer man by over two hundred thousand dollars than he had
been when Millbank came into his possession. His wife’s settlement and
his mother’s, and his recent heavy expenditures, had drawn largely upon
his means for procuring ready money whenever he wanted it, and as he sat
at his table, loaded with silver and groaning with luxuries, he felt
almost as poor as he had done in days gone by, when he had not enough to
pay his tailor and furnish himself with cigars. And still he was rich in
lands, and the mill, and houses, and he tried to shake off his feelings
of despondency and to believe himself very happy with that beautiful
wife beside him, who let him pare her peach for her, and took grapes
from his own cluster, and playfully pushed the wine bottle aside when he
was about to help himself for a second time.

Mrs. Walter Scott was cold as an icicle, and not all the Judge’s suavity
of manner had power to thaw her. She had promised not to say anything
disagreeable to the Burleighs, but her face was very expressive of her
dislike, and she could hardly answer either the Judge or Charlie with
common civility. She did not object to Grace; and she was even guilty of
wishing Frank’s choice had fallen upon the younger rather than the elder
sister, against whom she could, as yet, bring no accusation, but whom
she distrusted and secretly feared. Bell thoroughly understood her
mother-in-law, and knew tolerably well how to manage her. As Frank’s
wife, _she_ was mistress of Millbank, and though she made no show of her
authority, her power was felt in everything; and after she had reigned a
month or more, not a servant, with the exception of Mrs. Walter Scott’s
own maid, went to their former mistress for orders, but received them
from the new lady, who was very popular with them, and who, to a certain
extent, was popular in town. She could not endure most of the people by
whom she was surrounded; but she had made up her mind that it was better
to be admired than hated, and she adopted the _rôle_ of Patroness, or
Lady Bountiful, and played her part well, as Frank knew by his purse, so
often drawn from when Bell and Grace had some poor family on their
hands.

Grace did not go back to school. Millbank was intolerable to the bride
without the presence of her light-hearted, merry little sister; and so
Grace stayed and studied at home, under a governess, to whom Frank paid
five hundred dollars a year; and paid it the more willingly when he
found that the pretty Miss North admired _him_ above all men, and was
not averse to receiving compliments from him, even in the presence of
his wife. Bell did not care how many governesses he complimented,
provided he did not say his soft nothings to her. Had he affected a
great fondness for her, and bored her with attentions and caresses, she
would have hated him, but he had sense enough to see that love-making
was not her style, and so he contented himself with being the possessor
of the beautiful and expensive article, which he knew better than to
handle or touch. She was always very polite and gracious towards him,
but after a few weeks he ceased to pet or caress her, and almost always
called her Mrs. Irving, and studied her wishes in everything, except in
the matter of horses and _Holt_; there he was his own master, and did as
he liked, and bought as many horses as he chose, and went to the races,
and bet largely, and made Holt his chief man of business, and gave him
money to expend on double teams and single teams, and trusted him
implicitly; and when people asked where Holt got his means to live as he
was living now, Frank had no suspicions whatever, but said, “Joe Holt
was a first-rate chap, the best judge and manager of horses he ever saw,
and ought to succeed in life.”

And so the autumn waned, and the Christmas holidays were kept at
Millbank on a grand scale, and young people were there from
Boston,—friends of Grace and friends of Bell,—and the festivities were
kept up sometimes till two or three o’clock in the morning, and some of
the young men became very noisy and unmanageable, and among them
Charlie, while Frank was undeniably _drunk_, and was carried to his room
and given into the care of his wife! Then Bell rose in her might, and
locked up the wine and sent the fast young men home, and gave Charlie a
lecture he never forgot, and made him join the Good Templars forthwith,
and what was better, made him keep the pledge. What she did to Frank
nobody knew,—locked him up, the servants said. At all events, he kept
his room for two days, and only came out of it after the New Yorkers
were gone to their respective homes. Then he looked very meek and
crestfallen, like a naughty boy who has been punished, and his mother
pitied him and tried to sympathize, and made him so very angry that he
was guilty of swearing at her, and bidding her let him and Bell and
their affairs alone. And Mrs. Walter Scott did let them alone for a
while, and stayed a great deal in her own room, and had her meals served
there, and took to writing a book, for which she always thought she had
a talent. It was about mismated people, and the good heroine looked very
much like Mrs. Walter Scott, and the bad one like Mrs. Franklin Irving,
while the villain was a compound of Judge Burleigh, and Charlie, and
Holt, the horse-jockey.




                               CHAPTER L.
                                 ROGER.


Frank had invited Roger to spend Christmas at Millbank, but Roger had
declined, and had passed the holidays in his usual way at Schodick,
where there had come to him a letter from Arthur Grey, who, in referring
to the past, exonerated Jessie from all blame, and asked Roger’s
forgiveness for the great wrong done to him. Then he thanked him for his
kindness to Magdalen, and closed by saying:

  “Magdalen has been very anxious for you to come to Beechwood, and I
  should now extend an invitation for you to do so, were it not that we
  have decided to leave at once for Europe. We sail in the ‘Persia’ next
  week, immediately after my daughter’s marriage, which will be a very
  quiet affair. Hoping to see and know you at some future time, I am

                                       “Yours truly,       ARTHUR GREY.”

This letter had been delayed for some reason, and it did not reach Roger
until a week after it was written, and then there came in the same mail
a newspaper from New York, directed by Magdalen herself. Around a short
paragraph was the faint tracing of her pencil, and Roger read that among
the passengers the “Persia” would take out were Mr. Arthur Grey and
daughter, Mrs. Penelope Seymour, and Mr. Guy Seymour and lady. Magdalen
had underscored the “Mr. Guy Seymour and lady,” and upon the margin had
written:

“Good-by, Roger, good-by.”

“When Roger read Mr. Grey’s letter he had felt sure that the daughter to
whose marriage reference was made was Magdalen herself, and the
newspaper paragraph and pencil-marks confirmed him in this belief.

“Good-by, Roger, good-by.”

His white lips whispered the words, which seemed to run into each other
and grow dim and blurred as the great tears gathered in his eyes and
obscured his vision.

“Good-by, Roger, good-by.”

Yes, it was good-by forever now, and he felt it in its full force, and
bowed his head upon his hands and asked for strength to bear this new
pain, which yet was not new, for he had long felt that Magdalen was not
for him. But the pain, though old, was keener, harder to bear, and hurt
as it had never hurt before, for now the barrier between them, as he
believed, was a husband, and that for a time seemed worse than death.

Again the rock under the evergreen on the hillside witnessed the tears
and the prayers and the anguish of the man whose face began to look old
and worn, and who, the people said, was working too hard and had taken
too much upon his hands. He was the superintendent now of the cotton
mill, which had been enlarged, and of the shoe-shop erected since his
residence in Schodick. His profession, too, was not neglected, and the
little office on the green still bore his name, and all the farmers for
miles around asked for “Squire Irving,” as they called him, when they
came into town on business pertaining to the law. His word was trusted
before that of any other. What Squire Irving said was true, and no one
thought of doubting it. To him the widows came on behalf of their
fatherless children, and he listened patiently and advised them always
for the best, and took charge of their slender means and made the most
of them. The interests of orphan children, too, were committed to his
care, so that he fortunately had little time to indulge in sentiment or
sorrow, except at night, when the day’s labor was over, and he was free
to dwell upon the hopes of the past, the bitter disappointment of the
present, and the dreariness of the future.

After that paragraph in the newspaper he had heard no more of the Greys,
and had only mentioned them once. Then he told Hester of Magdalen’s
marriage with the young man who had come to see them, and whom Hester
remembered perfectly.

Hester did not believe a word of it, she said; but Roger replied that
Magdalen herself had sent him the paper, while Mr. Grey had written, so
there could be no mistake. Then Hester accepted it as a fact, and
looking in her boy’s face and seeing there the pain he tried so hard to
suppress, she felt her own heart throbbing with a keener regret and
sense of loss than she would have felt if Roger had not cared so much.

“That settles the business for him,” she said. “He’ll never marry now,
and I may as well send off to the heathen that cribby quilt I’ve been
piecin’ at odd spells, thinkin’ the time might come when Roger’s wife
would find it handy.”

And as she thus soliloquized old Hester washed her tea-dishes by the
kitchen sink and two great tears rolled down her nose and dropped into
the dish water. After that she never mentioned Magdalen, and as the
quilt was not quite finished, she laid it away in the candle-box cradle
which stood in the attic chamber, and over which she sometimes bent for
five minutes or more, while her thoughts were back in the past; and she
saw again the little girl who had sat so often in that cradle, and whose
dear little feet were wandering now amid the wonders of the Old World.

And so the winter, and the spring, and the summer went by, and in the
autumn Frank came for a few days to Schodick, looking almost as old as
Roger, and a great deal stouter and redder in the face than when we saw
him last; while a certain inflamed look in the eye told that Bell’s
arguments on the subject of temperance had not prevailed with him as
effectually as they had with her brother Charlie. Frank’s love of wine
had increased and grown into a fondness for brandy, but during his stay
in Schodick he abstained from both, and seemed much like himself. Very
freely he discussed his affairs with Roger, who pitied him from his
heart, for he saw that his life was not a pleasant one.

With regard to his domestic troubles, Roger forbore to make any remarks,
but he advised to the best of his ability about the business matters,
which were not in a very good condition. The shoe-shop had not been
rebuilt; there was always trouble with the factory hands; they were
either quitting entirely, or striking for higher wages; and the revenues
were not what Frank thought they ought to be. Ready money was hard to
get; and he was oftentimes troubled for means to pay the household
expenses, which were frightfully large. As well as he could, Roger
comforted the disheartened man, and promised to go to Millbank soon and
see what he could do toward smoothing and lubricating the business
machinery, and Frank while listening to him began to feel very hopeful
of the future, and grew light-hearted and cheerful again, and ready to
talk of something besides himself. And so it came about, as he sat with
Roger one evening, he said to him:

“By the way, Roger, do you ever hear from the Greys? Do you know where
they are?”

Roger did not; he had never heard from them, or of them, he said, since
the letter from Mr. Grey, announcing Magdalen’s approaching marriage
with Guy Seymour.

“Announcing _what_?” Frank asked. And Roger replied:

“Magdalen’s marriage with Guy Seymour. You knew that, of course.”

“Thunder!” Frank exclaimed, “have you been so deceived all this time,
and is that the cause of those white hairs in your whiskers, and that
crow-foot around your eyes? Roger, you are a bigger fool than I am, and
Bell has many a time proved to me conclusively that I am a big one. It
is _Alice_, not Magdalen, who is Mrs. Guy Seymour. They were married
very quietly at home; no wedding, no cards, on account of the mother’s
recent death. I know it is so, for I saw the happy pair with my own eyes
just before they sailed. So what more proof will you have?”

Roger needed none, and Frank could almost see the wrinkles fading out of
his face, and the light coming back to his eyes, as he tried to stammer
out something about its being strange that he was so deceived. Looking
at his uncle, now, and remembering all the past, there came again across
Frank the resolution to make a clean breast of what should have been
told long ago, and after a moment’s hesitancy he began:

“Roger, old chap, there are things I could tell you if I wasn’t afraid
you’d hate me all your life. I b’lieve I’ll take the risk any way, and
out with the whole of it.”

“I promise not to hate you. What is it?” Roger asked, and Frank
continued, “Magdalen always loved _you_, and you were blind not to have
seen it. You thought too little of yourself, and so fell into the snare
laid for you. Mother knew she loved you, and then got you to assent to
my addressing her, and I used you as an argument why she should listen
to me, and it almost killed her, as you would have known had you seen
her face.”

“What do you mean? I don’t think you make it quite clear,” Roger asked,
in a trembling voice; and then as well as he could Frank made it clear,
and told of the ways and means he had resorted to in order to win
Magdalen, who, through all, showed how her whole heart was given to
Roger.

“If you had seen her in the garret, rocking back and forth, and moaning
your name, and seen how she started from me when I said if she would
marry me I would burn the will and never speak of it, you would have no
doubt of her love for you.”

“Frank, you have wronged me! oh, you have wronged me terribly!” Roger
said, and his voice was hoarse with emotion. “Millbank was nothing to
this; but go on, tell the whole; keep nothing from me.”

And Frank went on, and told the whole which the reader already knows of
his efforts to deceive both Roger and Magdalen, whom he had succeeded in
separating.

“And were you never engaged?” Roger asked.

And Frank answered him:

“No, never. She would not listen to me for a moment. She admitted her
love for you, and I—oh, Roger, I am a villain, but I am getting my pay.
I made her think that you only cared for her as your ward or sister,
when by a word I could have brought you together,—and she was proud and
thought you slighted her, inasmuch as she never knew how much you were
with her when she was sick. You were gone when she came to a
consciousness of what was passing around her, and I did not tell her of
the message you sent from the West. I wanted her so badly myself, but I
failed. She left Millbank in my absence, and fate,—I guess I believe in
fate more than in Providence,—led her to the Greys, and you know the
rest, and why she has been cold toward you, if she has. She thought you
wanted her to marry me, and I do believe she has found that the hardest
to forgive, and I don’t blame her, neither would Bell. The idea of
anybody’s marrying _me_!”

Frank spoke bitterly, and struck his fist upon his knee as he mentioned
his wife.

But Roger did not heed that; he was thinking of Magdalen and what might
have been had Frank spoken earlier. Perhaps it was not too late now, and
his first impulse was to fly across the ocean which divided them and
find her; but neither he nor Frank knew where she was, though the latter
thought he could ascertain Mr. Grey’s address in New York, and would do
so the first time he was in the city. He was going to New York soon, he
said, and would do all he could to repair the wrong and bring Roger and
Magdalen together.

“You deserve her if ever a man did,” he continued, “and I hope,—yes, I
know it will one day come right.”

Frank brought his visit to a close next day, and left the old-fashioned
farm-house among the Schodick hills, which seemed a paradise compared
with Millbank, where he found his wife cool and quiet and self-possessed
as ever, and his mother angry, defiant, and terribly outraged with some
fresh slight put upon her by her daughter-in-law. With all his little
strength he threw himself into the breach, and showed so much discretion
in steering clear of both Scylla and Charybdis, that Bell felt a glow of
something like respect for him, and thought that one or two more visits
to his uncle might make a man of him. Poor Frank, with all his wealth
and elegance, and his handsome wife, was far more to be pitied than
Roger, to whom had been suddenly opened a new world of happiness, and
whose face ceased to wear the old tired look it had worn so long, and
who the people said was growing young every day. He felt within himself
new life and vigor, and thanked Heaven for the hope sent at last to
lighten the thick darkness in which he had groped so long. Very
anxiously he waited for Frank’s letter, which was to give him Mr. Grey’s
address, and when at last it came he wrote at once to Magdalen, and told
her of his love and hopes, and asked if she would let him come for her
when she returned to America, and take her with him to his home among
the hills.

“It is not Millbank,” he wrote, “but, save that Millbank is sacred to me
for the reason that your dear presence has hallowed every spot, I love
this home as well as I did that, or think I do. But you may not, and if
you come to me I shall build another house, more in accordance with my
bright bird, whose cage must be a handsomer one than this old New
England farm-house.”

This letter was sent to the care of Mr. Grey, and then, long before he
could reasonably hope for an answer, Roger began to expect one, and the
daily mail was waited for with an eagerness and excitement painful to
endure, especially as constant disappointment was the only result of
that watching and waiting and terrible suspense.

Magdalen did not write, and days and weeks and months went by, and Roger
grew old again, and there were more white hairs in his brown beard, and
he ceased to talk about the new house he was going to build, and seemed
indifferent to everything but the troubles at Millbank, which were upon
the increase, and which finally resulted in Mrs. Franklin Irving taking
her father and brother and sister, and going off to Europe on a pleasure
tour. Frank was glad to have them go, and feeling free once more,
plunged into all his former habits of dissipation, and kept Holt with
him constantly as his chief man of business, and rarely examined his
accounts, and knew less how he stood than did his neighbors, who were
watching his headlong course and predicting that it would soon end in
ruin.




                              CHAPTER LI.
                        MAGDALEN IS COMING HOME.


The Greys had been gone little more than three years and a half, and the
soft winds of June were kissing the ripples of the sea on the morning
when they finally embarked for America. They had travelled all over
Europe, from sunny France to colder, bleaker Russia, but had stopped the
longest at the Isle of Ischia, where at the “Piccola Sentinella” another
little life came into their midst, and Guy Seymour nearly went wild with
joy over his beautiful little boy, whose soft, blue eyes and golden
brown hair were so much like Alice’s. Magdalen was permitted to name the
wonderful baby, and without a moment’s hesitancy she said, “I would like
him to be called after the best man I ever knew—‘Roger Irving.’”

“Oh, Magdalena mia, you don’t forget him, do you? Love once love
forever, is your maxim,” Guy said, playfully; but he approved the name,
and so did Alice, who knew more of Magdalen’s heart-history now than she
once had done, and who with Guy had revolved many plans for bringing
Roger and Magdalen together.

Mr. Grey did not assent quite so readily to the name, though he did not
oppose it. He merely said, “Roger sounds rather old for a baby; but do
as you like,—do as you like.”

So they called the baby Roger Irving, and Magdalen was godmother, and
her tears fell like a baptismal shower upon the little face as she
thought of her own babyhood, and the man whom she had loved so long, and
who was continually in her thoughts. She knew he was not married; she
had heard that from the Burleighs who came one day to the “Piccola
Sentinella,” bringing news direct from home.

“Not married yet, and is not likely to be,” Mrs. Franklin Irving had
said, as she sat talking with Magdalen, whose voice was rather unsteady
when she asked for Roger.

Quick to read expressions of thought and feeling, Bell noted the flush
on the young girl’s face, and the tremor in her voice, and felt that she
had the key to Roger’s bachelorhood. She had met him twice,—once in
Boston and once at Millbank,—and had liked him very much, and shown her
liking in many ways, and even laid a little snare, hoping to entangle
him for _Grace_. This Frank saw, and told her “to hang up her fiddle,
for Roger’s heart was disposed of long ago to one who loved him in
return, but who was laboring under some mistake.”

Bell had forgotten this, but it came back to her again with Magdalen at
her side, and she told her “rumor said there was a cause for Roger’s
celibacy; that he loved a young girl who had once lived with him, and
that he was only waiting for chance to bring her in his way again.” Then
she told how popular he was, and how greatly beloved by the people in
Schodick and vicinity, and how fast he was growing rich.

Oh, how Magdalen longed to go home after that, and how she wondered that
Roger did not write if he really loved her, and how little she guessed
that he _had_ written long ago, and that her father had kept the letter
from her. To this act Mr. Grey had been prompted by a feeling he did not
himself quite understand. Against Roger as a man he had nothing, but he
did not think it right that his daughter should marry the son of the
woman whose early death had been indirectly caused by himself. Had he
known how strong was Magdalen’s love for Roger he would never have
withheld the letter, for, if possible, Magdalen was dearer to him now
than Alice, and he studied her happiness in everything. But she never
spoke of Roger, and he hoped that time and absence would weaken any
girlish affection she might have cherished for him. So when the letter
came, and he saw it was from Schodick, he put it away unopened, and
Magdalen knew nothing of it until long after Roger had ceased to expect
an answer, and hope was nearly or quite extinct in his heart.

Perhaps she would not have known of it then if death had not invaded
their family circle and laid his grasp upon her father, who died in
Germany, in a little village on the Rhine. His death was sudden to all
but himself. He had long known that he suffered from heart disease,
which might kill him at any moment, and as far as his worldly affairs
were concerned, he was ready. Every debt in America had been paid, every
business matter arranged, and his immense fortune divided equally
between his two daughters, with the exception that to Magdalen he gave
thirty thousand dollars more than he gave to Alice, this being just the
amount of poor Laura’s property. He was sick only a day or two and able
to talk but little, but he spoke to Magdalen of Roger Irving, and told
her of the letter withheld and where to find it, and said to her faintly
and at long intervals, “Forgive me, if I did wrong. I thought it would
be better for the families not to come together. I hoped you might
forget him if you believed yourself forgotten, but I see I was mistaken.
I am sorry now for the course I pursued. I would like to see the boy, or
man he is now. I saw him once when a little child. Jessie wanted to take
him with her, but I refused. I hated him, because he was hers and not
mine. I hated all the Irvings. I took Alice from New Haven because I
feared she might fancy Frank. I do not hate them now, and when I’m dead,
go back to Roger and tell him so, and tell—tell Jessie—if you see
her;—yes,—tell her and Laura, too,—that I tried—I tried—to pray, and I
did pray—and I hope—”

He did not say what he hoped, for his tongue grew stiff and paralyzed,
and only his eyes spoke the farewell which was forever. Alice and Guy
were both away at a little town farther up the river, where Guy had some
friends; but they hurried back to the vine-wreathed cottage they had
taken for the summer, and where their father now lay dead. He was an old
man, of nearly seventy, and had lived out his appointed time; but his
children wept bitterly over him, and kissed his white lips and snowy
hair, and then made him ready for the coffin, and buried him on the
banks of the blue Rhine, where the river, in its ceaseless flow, and the
rustling vines of Germany sing a requiem for the dead.

“Let us go back to America,” Magdalen said, when Guy and Alice asked
what her wishes were.

Even before her father was buried from her sight, she had found Roger’s
letter, of more than two and a half years ago, and had read it through,
and her heart had leaped across the sea with the answer she would give.
She knew Roger had not forgotten. He might have lost faith in her, from
her silence; but he loved her still, and amid all her sorrow for her
father, there was a spring of joy in her heart as she thought of the
future opening so blissfully before her. She told Guy and Alice
everything, and while they both felt how deeply she had been wronged,
they uttered no word of censure against the father, who had wronged her
so. He was dead and gone forever, and they made his grave beautiful with
flowers and shrubs, and placed by it a costly stone, and dropped their
tears upon it; and then turned their backs on Germany and travelled
night and day until the sea was reached,—the glorious sea, at sight of
which Magdalen wept tears of joy, blessing the dashing waves which were
to bear her home to Beechwood and to Roger Irving.




                              CHAPTER LII.
                      MILLBANK IS SOLD AT AUCTION.


Millbank was to be sold, with all its furniture and the hundred acres of
land belonging to it. Five years had sufficed for Frank to run through
his princely fortune, and he was a ruined man. Extravagant living,
losses by fire and neglect to take advantage of the markets, fast
horses, heavy bets, the dishonesty of Holt, his head man and chief
adviser, and lastly, his signing of a note of twenty thousand
dollars,—every penny of which he had to pay,—had done the business for
him; and when the Greys landed in New York the papers were full of the
“great failure” at Belvidere, and the day was fixed when Millbank was to
be sold.

Guy pointed out the paragraph to Magdalen, and then watched her as she
read it. She was very white, and there was a strange gleam in her dark
eyes; but she did not seem sorry. On the contrary, her face fairly shone
as she looked up and said, “I shall buy Millbank and give it back to
Roger.”

Guy knew she would do that, and he encouraged her in the plan, and went
himself to Belvidere, where he was a stranger, and made all needful
inquiries, and reported to Magdalen. Mrs. Frank had already left
Millbank with her hundred thousand, not a dollar of which could Frank’s
creditors touch, or Frank either, for that matter.

Bell held her own with an iron grasp, and so well had she managed that
none of the principal had been spent, and when the final crash came and
her husband told her he was ruined, it found her prepared and ready to
abdicate at any moment The old home in Boston was sold, but she was able
to buy a better one, and she did so, and with her father and sister took
possession at once. To do Bell justice, she carried nothing from
Millbank but her clothing and jewelry. The rest belonged to Frank’s
creditors, and she considered that it would be stealing to take it. This
she said several times for the benefit of Mrs. Walter Scott, who, less
scrupulous than her daughter-in-law, was quietly filling her trunks and
boxes with articles of value, silver and china, and linen and bedding,
and curtains, and whatever she could safely stow away. Mrs. Walter Scott
was about to buy a house, too, a cosy little cottage with handsome
grounds, just out of New York, on the New Haven road. She, too, had
managed well, as she supposed. She had speculated in stocks and _oil_
until she thought herself worth forty thousand dollars. There was some
of it lying in the bank, where she could draw it at any time, and some
of it still in _oil_, which she was assured she could sell at an advance
upon the original price. So, what with the forty thousand and what with
the household goods she would take from Millbank, she felt quite
comfortable in her mind, and bore the shock of her son’s failure with
great equanimity and patience. She was glad, she said, of something to
break up the terrible life they were leading at Millbank. For more than
a year, and indeed ever since Bell’s return from abroad, scarcely a word
had been exchanged between herself and Mrs. Franklin Irving, and each
lady had an establishment of her own, with a separate table, a separate
retinue of servants, and a separate carriage. There was no other way of
keeping the peace, and in desperation Frank himself had suggested this
arrangement, though he knew that the entire support of both families
would necessarily fall on him. But Frank was reckless, and did not
greatly care. He was going to destruction any way, he said to Roger, who
expostulated with him and warned him of the sure result of such
extravagance. “He was going to ruin, and he might as well go on a grand
scale, and better, too, if that would keep peace between _the women_.”

And so he went to ruin, and wrote to Roger one morning, “The smash has
come, and I’m poorer than I was when I depended on you for my bread.
Everything is to be sold, and I can’t say I am sorry. It’s been a
torment to me. I’ve never had the confidence of my men; they always
acted as if I was an intruder, and I felt so myself. I wish I could give
the thing back to you as clear as when I took it. I’d rather saw wood
than lead the dog’s life I have led for the last five years. Bell is
going to Boston. _She_ is rich, and maybe will let me live with her if I
pay my board! That sounds queer, don’t it? but I tell you, old chap, you
are better off without a wife. I don’t believe in women any way. Mother
is going to New York and I am going to thunder.”

Roger’s heart gave one great throb of sorrow for his nephew when he read
this letter, and then beat wildly with the wish that he could buy
Millbank back. But he was not able, and he could have wept bitterly at
the thoughts of its going to strangers. “Thy will be done,” was a lesson
Roger had learned thoroughly, and he said it softly to himself, and was
glad his father did not know that the old place which had been in the
family more than fifty years, was about to pass from it forever.

He went to Millbank and examined Frank’s affairs to see if anything
could be saved for the young man, who seemed so crushed, so hopeless,
and so stony. But matters were even worse than he had feared. There was
nothing to do but to sell the entire property. Roger _could_ buy the
mill, and the men were anxious for him to do so, and crowded around him
with their entreaties, which Frank warmly seconded.

“Buy it, Roger, and let me work in it as a common hand. I’d rather do it
a thousand times than live on my wife, even if her money did come from
me.”

Frank said this bitterly, and Roger’s heart ached for him as he replied
that perhaps he would buy the Mill; he’d think of it and decide. It was
not to be sold till after Millbank, and his decision would depend on who
bought that. This comforted Frank a little, and he felt a great deal
better when he at last said good-by to Roger, who went back to Schodick
the day but one before Guy Seymour’s arrival in Belvidere.

Guy did not go to see Frank. He found out all he cared to know from
other sources, and reported to Magdalen, who could scarcely eat or
sleep, so great was her excitement and so eager was she for the day of
the sale.

“Have you answered Roger’s letter?” Alice asked, and she replied: “No,
nor shall I till Millbank is mine. Then I shall take my answer to him
with a deed of the place.”

She had it all arranged,—her going to Schodick unannounced to see Roger,
her laying the deed before him, and her keen enjoyment of his surprise
and astonishment, both at the deed and the sight of herself.

“It is five years since I saw him. I wonder if he will know me, and if
he will think me old at twenty-four?” she said as she arose and glanced
at herself in the mirror.

Three years of travel had not _impaired_ but greatly _improved_ her
looks and style, and those who thought her handsome when she went away
exclaimed now at her matchless loveliness, and Magdalen knew herself
that she was beautiful, and was glad for Roger’s sake. Every thought and
feeling now had a direct reference to him, and when at last the day of
the sale arrived, she was sick with excitement, and read Guy’s message
in bed.

He had promised to telegraph as soon as Millbank was hers, and all
through the morning she waited and watched and her head throbbed with
pain and she grew more and more impatient, until at last came the
telegram.

“Millbank is yours. Mr. Roger Irving neither here nor coming. GUY.”

Then Magdalen arose and dressed herself, and seemed like one insane as
she flew about the room and packed a small hat-box preparatory for
to-morrow’s journey. She was going to Millbank to execute the deed, and
then on to Schodick with Guy. Alice helped her all she could, and tried
to keep her quiet, and make her eat and rest lest her strength should
fail entirely.

But Magdalen was not tired, she said, nor sick now. She felt better than
she had done in years, and her eyes were bright as stars and her cheeks
like damask roses when she bade Alice good-by and started for Belvidere.

Guy met her at the station, and conducted her to the new hotel, which
had been built since she left the place. The windows of her room
commanded a view of Millbank, and she looked with tearful eyes at her
old home and Roger’s, and thought, “It will be ours again.” She had no
doubt of that, no doubt of Roger, and her heart thrilled with ecstasy as
she anticipated the joyous future. There had not been much excitement at
the sale, Guy told her; but few seemed to care for so large a house, and
the bids had ceased altogether when once it was rumored that _he_ was
merely bidding for _her_,—for Magdalen.

“I believe they suspected your intention,” Guy said, “and you got
Millbank some thousands cheaper than I thought you would. It is a grand
old place, and has not been injured by its recent proprietors.”

Magdalen did not wish to go into the house while Mrs. Walter Scott was
there, but she rode through the grounds in the afternoon, and the next
day started with Guy for Schodick, which they reached about three
o’clock.

“Mr. Irving was in town,” the landlord said, “and slightly indisposed,
he believed; at least he was not at his office that morning, and the
clerk said he was at his house, sick.”

“I am going to him at once,” Magdalen said to Guy. “You have been there.
You can direct me,” and within half an hour after their arrival in
Schodick she was on her way to Roger’s house with the deed of Millbank
in her pocket.




                             CHAPTER LIII.
                       MAGDALEN AT ROGER’S HOME.


It had been some consolation to Roger to know that an Irving was living
at Millbank, even if it was no longer his, but to have it pass into the
hands of strangers was terrible to him, and on the day of the sale he
lived over again the sorrow he had felt when first his fortune was taken
from him.

He had requested Frank to inform him at once with regard to the
purchaser, and had waited almost as impatiently as Magdalen herself,
until Frank’s telegram flashed along the wires, “Sold to Guy Seymour,
for Magdalen.”

Then for a moment Roger’s heart gave a great throb of joy, and a hope or
expectation of something, he knew not what, flitted through his mind. He
had seen in a paper that Guy Seymour had returned from Europe with his
family, and from the same paper learned that Mr. Grey was dead. There
was no bitterness then in Roger’s heart towards the man whose enemy he
had been. Arthur Grey was dead, and gone to One who would deal justly
with him; and Roger was sorry he had ever felt so hard towards him, for
he had been the father of Magdalen, and she was as dear to him now as
she had been in the years gone by, when she made the very brightness of
his life. He could not forget her, though her name was never on his
lips, save as he bore it night and morning to the Throne of Grace, or
whispered it to himself in the loneliness of his room, or up among the
pines, where she always seemed near to him. He had given up all hope of
ever calling her his own. His unanswered letter had driven him to that,
and still the days were brighter and life seemed far more desirable
after he knew that she had returned, that the same sky smiled on them
both by day, and the same stars kept watch over them at night.

“Guy Seymour bought it for Magdalen,” he said, as he held the telegram
in his trembling hand. “Yes, I see; her father has left her rich, and
she has bought Millbank, and means perhaps to live there; but not alone,
surely not alone in that great house;” and then Roger went off into a
train of speculation as to Magdalen’s probable intentions. Was Guy to be
there with Alice, or was there a prospective husband across the sea?
Roger grew hot and faint when he thought of that, and felt a headache
coming on, and said to his partner that he would go home and rest a
while. He told Hester of the telegram, and with a woman’s ready wit she
_guessed_ what Magdalen’s intentions might be, but gave no sign to
Roger. She saw how pale he was looking, and was prepared to hear of his
headache, and made him some tea, and told him to keep still and not
bother about Frank’s affairs.

“You’ve just tired yourself to death over ’em,” she said, “and it’s no
wonder you are sick.”

He was better the next day, and went as usual to his office, but the
next morning his headache had returned with redoubled violence. And
while Magdalen was making her way to the old-fashioned farm-house
covered with vines and surrounded with flowers and shrubs, he was
sleeping quietly upon the couch in his room, unmindful of the great
happiness in store for him,—the great surprise, coming nearer and nearer
as Magdalen hastened her footsteps, her heart beating almost to bursting
when at a sudden turn in the road she came upon the house which they
told her was Mr. Irving’s.

“The first one round the corner. You’ll know it by the heaps of flowers,
and the pretty yard,” a boy had said, and Magdalen had almost run, so
eager was she to be there.

“Oh, how beautiful! I should know Roger lived here,” she said, as she
stopped to admire the velvety turf in which patches of bright flowers
were blooming, the fanciful beds, the borders and walks, and the signs
of taste and care everywhere visible.

She did not think of the old house, with its low windows and doors, and
signs of antiquity. She saw only the marks of cultivation around it, and
thought it was Roger’s home. The windows of an upper room were open, and
a rustic basket of ivy and geraniums and verbenas was standing in one of
them, while a book with the paper folder in it was in the other, and
across both white curtains were hanging, the summer wind moving them in
and out with a slow, gentle motion.

“I know that this is Roger’s room,” Magdalen said, and a vague desire
seized her that he might receive Millbank from her there.

                  *       *       *       *       *

Old Hester Floyd had finished her work and was about to “tidy herself up
a little,” when a rustling movement at the door attracted her attention,
and she turned to find Magdalen standing there, her dark eyes bright as
diamonds, her cheeks flushed and burning with excitement, her lips apart
and her hands clasped together, as she bent slightly forward across the
kitchen threshold. With a scream, Hester bounded toward her, and
dragging her into the room, exclaimed, “Magdalen, Magdalen, I knew it, I
knew it. I said something was going to happen when the rooster crowed so
this morning,—somebody going to come; but I did not dream of you,
Magdalen, oh! Magdalen.” She kept repeating the name, and with her hard,
rough hands held and rubbed the soft white fingers she had clasped;
then, as the joy kept growing, she sobbed aloud and broke down entirely.

“Oh! Magdalen,” she said, “I am so glad for _him_. He has wanted you and
missed you all the time, though he never mentioned your name.”

Something in the face or manner of the younger woman must have
communicated itself to the mind of the elder, for Magdalen had given no
reason for her sudden appearance at Schodick, or sign of what she meant
to do. But Hester took her coming as a good omen for Roger, and kept
repeating, “I’m so glad, so glad for Roger.”

“How do you know he wants me, if, as you say, he never mentions my
name?” Magdalen asked, and Hester replied, “How do we know the sun
shines when we can’t _hear_ it? We can see and feel, can’t we? And so I
know you ain’t long out of Roger’s mind, and ain’t been since we moved
here, and he brung the candle-box cradle with him just because you once
slept in it.”

“Did Roger do that? Did he bring my cradle from Millbank? Why didn’t you
tell me before?” Magdalen asked, her eyes shining with tears of joy at
this proof of Roger’s love.

“I thought I did write it to you,” Hester replied; “I meant to, but
might of forgot but he brought it by express; and it’s upstairs now, and
in it—”

Hester stopped abruptly, thinking it might be premature to speak of the
cribby quilt, which did not now stand so good a chance of reaching the
heathen as it had done one hour before.

“Where is Roger?” Magdalen asked, and Hester told her of the headache he
had complained of ever since the day of the sale, adding, “He’s in his
room, which is fixed up as nice as anybody’s; his books and pictures and
a little recess for his bed, just like any gentleman.”

“Does he know who bought Millbank?” Magdalen asked next, and Hester
replied:

“Yes, Frank telegraphed that Mr. Seymour bought it for _you_, and Roger
was as white as a ghost, and has been sick ever since. Magdalen, what
did you buy Millbank for? Be you goin’ to git married?”

Hester asked this question a little anxiously, and Magdalen’s eyes
fairly danced as she replied, “I think so, Hester, but I’m not quite
certain. I did not buy Millbank for myself, though, I bought it for
Roger, and—”

Hester’s hand deepened its grasp on Magdalen’s, and Hester’s face was
almost as white as her cap border, as she bent forward to listen, saying
eagerly, “and what, Magdalen? You bought it for Roger and what?”

“And have given it to him. I was the means of his losing it. It is right
that I should give it back, and I am here to do so. The deed is in my
pocket, made out to him, to Roger,—see,” and she held the precious
document toward Hester, who was on her knees now, kissing even the dress
of the young girl thus making restitution.

She could hardly believe it true, and she took the paper in her hands
and pressed it to her lips, then opened it reverently, and glancing at
its contents, whispered, “It is, it is. It reads like the deed of the
tavern stand. It must be true. Oh, Magdalen, Roger can’t live there
alone. Who is to live with him?”

“You and I, Hester, if he will let us. Do you think he will?” Magdalen
said, with a merry gleam in her bright eyes.

“Do I think he will? Ask him, and see what he says.”

Old Hester had risen to her feet, but she still held Magdalen’s hand,
and leading her into the next room, pointed to the stair door, and said,
“He is up there; come on if you want to see him.”

At the head of the stairs Hester paused a moment to reconnoitre,—then
whispered softly, “He’s asleep on the lounge. Shall we go back?”

“No, leave me here with him,” Magdalen replied, and nodding assent,
Hester stole softly down the stairs, while Magdalen stepped carefully
across the threshold of the room, and closing the door behind her stood
looking upon Roger.




                              CHAPTER LIV.
                          ROGER AND MAGDALEN.


He was sleeping quietly, and his forehead was fully exposed to view,
with the brown curls clustering around it, and an occasional frown or
shadow flitting across it as if the pain were felt even in his sleep.
How Magdalen’s fingers tingled to thread those curls, and smooth that
broad, white brow; but she dared not for fear of waking him, and she
held her breath and stood looking at him as he slept, feeling a keen
throb of sorrow as she saw how he had changed and knew what had changed
him. He was much thinner than when she saw him last, and there were
lines about his mouth and a few threads of silver in his brown beard,
while his eyes, as he slept, seemed hollow and sunken.

There was a stool just at her feet, and she pushed it to his side, and
seating herself upon it prepared to watch and wait until his heavy
slumber ended. And while she waited she looked around and noted all the
marks of a refined taste which Roger had gathered about him,—the books,
the pictures, the flowers and shells, and lastly, a little crayon sketch
of herself, drawn evidently from memory, and representing her as she sat
by the river bank years ago, when first Roger Irving felt that his
interest in his beautiful ward was more than a mere liking. It was
hanging close to Jessie’s picture, and Magdalen sat gazing at it until
she forgot where she was, and was back again beneath the old tree by the
river bank, with Roger at her side. Suddenly she gave a long, deep sigh,
and then Roger awoke, and met the glance of her bright eyes, and saw her
face so near to him, and knew that his long night of sorrow was over,
else she had never been there, kneeling by him as she was, with her
hands holding his and her tears dropping so fast as she tried to speak
to him.

“Magda, Magda, my darling,” was all he could say as he drew her into his
arms and held her there a moment in a close embrace.

Then releasing her he lay down upon his pillow, pale as death and
utterly prostrated with the neuralgic pain which the sudden excitement
and surprise had brought back again.

“You take my breath away; when did you come, and why?” he asked; and
then releasing her hands from his, Magdalen took the deed from her
pocket and changing her position held it before his eyes, saying: “_I_
came to bring this, Roger; to make restitution; to give you back
Millbank, which, but for me, you would not have lost. See, it is made
out to you! Millbank is yours again. I bought it with my own
money,—bought it for you,—I give it to you,—it is yours.”

She spoke rapidly and kept reiterating that Millbank was _his_, because
of the look on his face which she did not quite understand. He was too
much bewildered and confounded to know what to say, and for a moment was
silent, while his eyes ran rapidly over the paper, which, beyond a
doubt, made him master of Millbank again.

“Why did you do this, Magda?” he said at last, and his chin quivered a
little as he said it.

Then Magdalen burst out impulsively, “Oh, Roger, don’t look as if you
were not glad. I’ve thought so much about it, and wanted to do something
by way of amends. I saved all my salary, every dollar, before I knew I
was Magdalen Grey, and was going to send it to you, but Guy laughed me
out of it, and said you did not need it: then, when father died and I
knew I was rich, my first thought was of you, and when I heard Millbank
was to be sold, I said, ‘I’ll buy it for Roger if it takes every cent I
am worth;’ and I _have_ bought it, and given it to you, and you must
take it and go back there and live. I shall never be happy till you do.”

She stopped here, but she was kneeling still, and her tearful, flushed
face was very near to Roger, who could interpret her words and manner in
only one way, and that a way which made the world seem like heaven to
him.

“Magda,” he said, winding his arm around her and drawing her hot cheek
close to his own, “let me ask one question. I can’t live at Millbank
alone. If I take it of you, who will live there with me?”

Hester had asked a similar question, but Magdalen did not reply to Roger
just as she had to the old lady. There was a little dash of coquetry in
her manner, which would not perhaps have appeared had she been less sure
of her position.

“I suppose _Hester_ will live with you, of course,” she said. “She does
nicely for you here. She is not so very old.”

There was a teasing look in Magdalen’s eyes, which told Roger he had
nothing to fear, and raising himself up he drew her down beside him and
said: “I ask you to be candid with me, Magda. We have wasted too much
time not to be in earnest now. Your coming to me as you have could only
be construed in one way, were you like most girls; but you are not. You
are impulsive. You think no evil, see no evil, but do just what your
generous heart prompts you to do. Now, tell me, darling, was it sympathy
and a desire to make restitution, as you designate it, or was it love
which sent you here when I had ceased to hope you would ever come. Tell
me, Magda, do you, can you love your old friend and guardian, who has
been foolish enough to hold you in his heart all these many years, even
when he believed himself indifferent to you?”

Roger was talking in sober earnest, and his arm deepened its clasp
around Magda’s waist, and his lips touched the shining hair of the bowed
head which drew back a moment from him, then drooped lower and lower
until it rested in his bosom, as Magdalen burst into a flood of tears
and sobs. For a moment she did not try to speak; then, with a desperate
effort to be calm, she lifted up her head and burst out with, “I never
got your letter, never knew it was written until a few weeks ago. Father
kept it. Forgive him, Roger; remember he was my father, and he is dead,”
she cried vehemently, as she saw the dark frown gathering on Roger’s
face. Yes, he was her father, and he was dead, and that kept Roger from
cursing the man who had wronged him in his childhood, through his
mother, and touched him still closer in his later manhood, by keeping
him so long from Magdalen.

“Father told me at the last,” Magdalen said. “He was sorry he kept it,
and he bade me tell you so. He did not dislike _you_. It was the name,
the association; and he hoped I might forget you, but I didn’t. I have
remembered you all through the long years since that dreadful day when I
found the will, and it hurt me so to think you wanted me to marry Frank.
That was the hardest of all.”

“But you know better now. I told you in my letter of Frank’s
confession,” Roger said, and Magdalen replied, “Yes, I know better now.
Everything is clear, else I had never come here to bring you Millbank,
and—and, myself, if you will take me. Will you, Roger? It is leap year,
you know. I have a right to ask.”

She spoke playfully, and her eyes looked straight into his own, while
for answer he took her in his arms, and kissed her forehead and lips and
hair, and she felt that he was praying silently over her, thanking
Heaven for this precious gift which had come to him at last. Then he
spoke to her and said, “I take you, Magda, willingly, gladly; oh how
gladly Heaven only knows, and as I cannot well take you without the
incumbrance of Millbank, I accept that, too; and darling, though this
may not be the time to say it, there has already been so much of
business and money and lands mixed up with our love, that I may, I am
sure, tell you I am able of myself to buy the mill in Belvidere and the
site of the old shoe-shop. Frank wanted me to do it, and I put him off
with saying I would wait until I knew who was to live at Millbank. I
know now,” and again he rained his kisses upon the face of her who was
to be his wife and the undisputed mistress, as he was the master, of
Millbank.

A long time they talked together of the past, which now seemed to fade
away so fast in the blissful joy of the present; and Magdalen told him
of little Roger Irving, whose godmother she was, and of her mother and
Alice, and the home at Beechwood, where Guy Seymour’s family would
continue to live.

“It’s the same house my father built for Jessie,—for your mother,”
Magdalen said, softly, and glanced up at the picture on the wall, whose
blue eyes seemed to look down in blessing upon this pair to whom the
world was opening so brightly.

Then they talked of Frank and Bell and Mrs. Walter Scott, and by that
time the summer sun was low in the western horizon, and Hester’s
tea-table was spread with every delicacy the place could afford; while
Hester herself was fine and grand in her second-best black silk, which
nothing less than Magdalen’s arrival could have induced her to wear on a
week-day.

Guy, too, had made his appearance after waiting in vain for Magdalen’s
return. Hester remembered him, and welcomed him warmly, and told him
“the young folks was up chamber, billin’ and cooin’ like two turtle
doves,” whereupon Guy began to whistle “Highland Mary,” which Magdalen
heard, and starting up, exclaimed:

“There’s Guy come for me! I must go now back to the hotel.”

But she did not go, for Roger would not permit it, and he kept her there
that night, and the next day took her to his favorite place of
resort,—the rock under the pine,—and seating her upon the mossy bank
knelt beside her, and gave thanks anew to Heaven, who had heard and
answered the prayer made so often under that tasselled pine,—that if it
were right Magda should one day come to him as his. Then they went all
over the farm and down to the mill, where some of the operatives who had
lived in Belvidere and knew Magdalen came to speak with her, thus
raising themselves in the estimation of the less favored ones, who gazed
admiringly at the beautiful young girl, rightly guessing the relation
she held to Mr. Irving, and feeling glad for him.

No repairs were needed at Millbank, and but few changes; so that the
house was ready any time for its new proprietors, but Magdalen would not
consent to going there as its mistress until September, for she wanted
the atmosphere thoroughly cleared from the taint of Mrs. Walter Scott’s
presence, and it would take more than a few weeks for that. She liked
Bell and she pitied Frank; but Mrs. Walter Scott was her special
aversion, and so long as she remained at Millbank, Magdalen could not
endure even to cross its threshold. Still it seemed necessary that she
should do so before her return to Beechwood, and on the morning
following the peaceful Sunday spent at Schodick she returned to
Belvidere, which by this time was rife with the conjectures that Roger
was coming back to Millbank and Magdalen was coming with him.




                              CHAPTER LV.
                 MILLBANK IS CLEAR OF ITS OLD TENANTS.


That afternoon Magdalen went with Guy over the house, where she was met
by Frank, and welcomed as the new mistress. Appropriating her at once to
himself, Frank led her from room to room, seeming pleased at her
commendations of the taste which had been displayed in the selection of
furniture and the care which had evidently been given to everything.

“It was Bell,” Frank said. “She is a good housekeeper, and after the
split with mother she attended to things. They had separate apartments,
you know, at the last;—didn’t speak a word, which I liked better than a
confounded quarrel. I tell you, Magdalen, I’ve seen sights of trouble
since you found that will, and I am happier to-day, knowing I’ve got out
of the scrape, than I’ve been before in years.”

He seemed disposed to be very communicative, and was going on to speak
of his domestic troubles; but Magdalen quietly checked him, and then
asked where his mother was intending to go.

“The mills of the gods grind slowly, but _fine_, exceedingly fine,”
Frank said; and then he told of his mother’s fears for her money
deposited in the bank of ——. There was a rumor that the bank had failed,
but as it was only a rumor he still hoped for the best.

“At the first alarm, mother went to bed,” he said, “and she is there
still; so you must excuse her not seeing you.”

Magdalen had no desire to see her, and when on her way to Beechwood she
read in the paper of the total failure of the bank where Frank had told
her his mother’s money was deposited, she did not greatly sympathize
with the artful, designing woman, who almost gnashed her teeth when she,
too, heard of her loss. She was all ready for removal to “Rose Cottage,”
for which a friend was negotiating, and her trunks and boxes were packed
with every conceivable valuable which could by any means be crowded into
them; oil paintings, chromos, steel engravings, costly vases, exquisite
shells, knives, forks, spoons, china, cut glass, table-linen, bed linen,
and even carpets formed a part of her spoil, intended for that cottage,
which now was not within her reach. There was still her _oil stock_
left, and with that she might manage to live respectably, she thought,
and resolving that no one should exult over her disappointment from any
change they saw in her, she tried to appear natural, and when an attempt
was made at sympathy, answered indifferently “that she was sorry, of
course, as she could have done so much good with the money; but the Lord
knew what was best, and she must bear patiently what was sent upon her.”
This was what she said to her clergyman, who came to sympathize with
her; but when he was gone, she looked the house over again, to see if
there was anything more which she could take, and in case of necessity
turn into money. Some one in Belvidere wrote to Roger that the house at
Millbank was being _robbed_, and advised strongly that means be taken to
prevent further depredations; and a few days after Mrs. Walter Scott was
met in the hall by a stern-looking man, who said he came, at Mr.
Irving’s request, to take an inventory of all the articles of furniture
in the house, and also to remain there and see that nothing was harmed
or _removed_.

He laid great stress on the last word, and the lady grew hot and red,
and felt that she was suspected and looked upon as a thief, and resented
it accordingly; but after that there was no more hiding of articles
under lock and key, for the stranger always seemed to be present, and
she knew that she was watched; and when he inquired for a small and
expensive oil painting which Roger had bought in Rome, and an exquisite
French chromo, and certain pieces of silver and cut glass which he had
on his list as forming a part of the household goods he was appointed to
care for, she _found_ them and gave them, one by one, into his hands.
And so her stock of goods diminished and she hastened to get away before
everything was taken from her; and one morning in August finally
departed for a boarding-house in New York, where she intended staying
until something better offered.

As soon as she was gone, a bevy of servants came out from Beechwood, and
Roger came from Schodick to superintend them, and old Hester came to
oversee _him_, and the renovating process went rapidly on, while crowds
of the villagers flocked to the house, curious to see the costly
articles of furniture which, during the last few years, had been
constantly arriving, and of which the house was full to overflowing.

The mill was Roger’s now, as well as the site of the old shoe-shop. He
had bought them both on the day of their sale, and the operatives of the
mill had hurrahed with might and main for their new master, never
heeding the old one, who still remained in town, and who, whatever he
might have felt, put a good face on the matter, and seemed as glad and
as interested as the foremost of them. Only once did he manifest the
slightest feeling, and that was when with Roger he entered Bell’s
sleeping room, where the silken curtains were hanging and the many
expensive articles of the toilet were still lying as Bell had left them.
Then sitting down by the window, he cried; and, when Roger looked at him
questioningly, he told of his little boy born in that room, and dead
before it was born.

“Bell was glad,” he said,—“she does not like children; but I was so
sorry, for if that boy had lived I should have been a better man; but it
died, and Bell has left me, and mother’s gone, and my money’s gone, and
I am a used-up dog generally,” he added bitterly; and then with a sudden
dashing away of his tears he brightened into his former self, and said,
laughingly, “But what’s the use of fretting? I shall get along some way.
I always have, you know.”

In his heart he knew Roger would not let him suffer, and when Roger said
as much by way of comforting him, he took it as a matter of course, and
secretly hoped “the governor would give him something handsome, and let
him keep a horse!”




                              CHAPTER LVI.
                              THE BRIDAL.


Millbank was ready at last for its new mistress. But few changes had
been made, and these in the library and the suite of rooms set apart for
the bride. Her tastes were simpler than Bell’s, and some of the gorgeous
trappings had been removed and soberer ones put in their place. The
house at Schodick had been despoiled of a portion of its furniture,
which now formed a part of Millbank; Jessie’s picture and the candle-box
cradle were both brought back, and Hester had the little quilt safe in
her trunk, and had bought a new gray satin dress for the wedding party
to be given at Millbank, September 15th, the day after the bridal. The
idea of gray satin Hester had gotten from Mrs. Penelope Seymour, who
came to Millbank to see that everything was as it should be for the
reception of her niece. She had stayed three days and nights, and Hester
had admired her greatly and copied her dress, and had it made in
Springfield, and fitted over hoops and cotton, and then tried to fix up
Aleck into something a little more modern. But Aleck was incorrigible,
and would wear his short pants and cowhide shoes tied with leather
strings, and so she gave him up, and comforted herself with the fact
that he stayed mostly in his room, and would not run much risk of being
laughed at by the “grandees” expected with the bridal party from New
York.

Roger had already gone to Beechwood, where Magdalen was waiting for him.
It was his first visit there, and there were strange thoughts crowding
upon his mind as he rode up the mountain side toward the house which had
been built for his mother, and whither she once hoped to come as a
bride. Now she was dead, her grave the ocean bed, her shroud the ocean
grass, and he, her son, was going for his bride, the daughter of Arthur
Grey. “Surely the ways of Providence are inscrutable; who can know
them?” he said, just as a turn in the road brought the house and grounds
fully into view, together with Magdalen, who, in her evening dress of
white, was standing on the piazza, her face glowing with health and
beauty and eager expectation. Very joyfully she received him, and
leading him into the house presented him to Alice and her aunt, and then
went for her little nephew, whom she brought to his “Uncle Roger.”

They were a very merry party at Beechwood that night, and not a shadow
rested on the hearts of any one. It was better that Laura should be
gone, better for her, better for them all; and when Magdalen saw how
white Roger turned at the sight of her father’s picture, she felt that
it was well perhaps that he, too, was dead, for the two men could not
have been wholly congenial to each other. The bridal was the next day
but one, and Magdalen in her plain travelling dress was very beautiful,
as she pledged herself to the man whose face wore a look of perfect
peace and thankfulness as he clasped her hand and knew it was his
forever. He made no demonstrations before the people, but when for a
moment they were alone, as she went up for her hat and shawl, he opened
his arms to her, and clasping her tightly to his bosom, showered his
kisses upon her face and hands and hair, and called her his precious
wife, his darling, won at last after many years of sorrow.

They went to New York that night, and the next day arrived at Millbank,
with Mrs. Seymour, Guy, and Alice, and a few friends, the Dagons and
Draggons, whose quiet, unostentatious elegance of manner created quite
as great a sensation as Mrs. Walter Scott’s more showy guests had done
when her son was the groom and Bell Burleigh the bride. Roger had given
his men a holiday, and had ordered a dinner for them upon the Millbank
grounds, but he had not hinted at a demonstration or bonfire, and was
surprised when the New York train came round the bend in the meadow to
see the crowds and crowds of people assembled before the depot, some on
the fence, some on the woodpile, some on the platform, and all glad and
excited and eager to see him. The Belvidere Band was there also, and
preceded the carriage up to the house, which had never seemed so
pleasant and desirable to Roger as now, when he came back to it with
Magdalen, and felt that both were his beyond a possibility of doubt. Old
Hester received them, and no one but herself was allowed to remove the
bride’s wrappings, or conduct her to her room. Hester was in her
element, and Mrs. Walter Scott never bore herself more proudly than did
the old lady on that eventful day, when she seemed suddenly to have
grown young again, and to be in every place at once, her cap-strings
flying behind her, and her black silk pinned about her waist. The gray
was reserved for the evening, when, instead of a party proper, to which
a few were bidden, a general reception was held, which all were welcome
to attend. There was a great crowd, for rich and poor, old and young,
plebeian and aristocrat, came to pay their respects to the newly married
pair; but not a rude thing was done, or a rough word spoken by any one.
Roger, himself, did not know them all, and Magdalen only a few; but her
greeting was just as cordial to one as to another. Her travelling dress
had been very plain, but this evening she was radiant in white satin and
lace and pearls, with the bridal veil floating back from her head, and
the orange wreath crowning her shining hair; and those who had never
seen such dress and style before held their breath in wonder, and for
months after talked with pride of the night when all the town was
permitted to see and shake hands with the sweet lady of Millbank, Mrs.
Roger Irving. Roger had forbidden a bonfire, but there were lanterns
hung in the trees all over the grounds, and the young people danced
there upon the floor which had been temporarily laid down, until
midnight was passed, and the moon was so high in the horizon that the
glare of lamps was no longer needed to light up the festal scene.

Mrs. Franklin Irving had been invited to be present, but she wisely
declined, and sent instead a most exquisite ring to Magdalen, who let
Frank put it upon her finger and kiss her hand as he did so, a privilege
he claimed because the ring was said to be _his_ gift and Bell’s. His
wife had conceded so much to him, though Frank had known nothing of the
ring until he saw it in its velvet box on his wife’s bureau. Unlike her,
he had no feelings of delicacy to prevent his being present at Roger’s
bridal party. With no business on his hands, and nothing to expect from
his wife besides his board, he was quite as willing to stay at Millbank
as in Boston, and seemed to take it for granted that he was welcome
there. And nobody cared much about his movements except Hester, who
wondered “Why the lazy lout didn’t go to work and earn his own vittles,
instead of hangin’ on to Roger. She vummed if she’d stan’ it much
longer. She’d set him to work if Roger didn’t.”

And so as time went on and Frank still lingered about the place, Hester
gradually impressed him into her service, and made him do some of the
things which Aleck once had done and which he was unable to do now.
Sometimes he brought water for her, or split her kindlings, or went to
the village on an errand, and did it willingly, too, though he always
wore his gloves, and generally carried his cane and eye-glass, which
last article he had of late adopted. It was Magdalen who finally
interfered and stood between Hester and Frank, and said he was welcome
to remain at Millbank as long as he chose, and that if Hester had not
servants enough another should be procured at once. This was the first
and only time that Magdalen asserted her right as mistress in opposition
to old Hester, who submitted without a word and ever after left Frank in
peace.

September passed quickly, and in the late October days, when the New
England woods were gorgeous with crimson and gold, and Millbank was
still beautiful with its autumn flowers, Mrs. Franklin Irving came up to
visit Mr. and Mrs. Roger, and was received by them with all the
cordiality due so near a relative. Not by a word or look did she betray
the slightest regret for the past, when she had been mistress where she
was now only a guest. Millbank was to her as any stranger’s house, and
she bore herself naturally and pleasantly, and made herself very
agreeable to Roger, and devoted herself to Magdalen, whom she liked so
much, and was civil and almost kind to her husband, who was still there,
and as Hester said, “just as shiftless as ever.”

Bell saw the state of affairs, and while she despised her husband more
than ever for his indolence and lack of sensibility, she resolved to
give Magdalen a rest, and leave her alone with Roger for a time; so when
in November she returned to Boston, she invited Frank to go with her,
and secured him a place as book-keeper in a merchant’s counting-house,
and stimulated perhaps by the perfect happiness and confidence she had
seen existing between Roger and Magdalen, tried by being kind and even
deferential to him to mould him into something of which she would not be
so terribly ashamed as she was now of the careless, shambling, listless,
lazy man, whom everybody knew as Mrs. Franklin Irving’s husband.




                             CHAPTER LVII.
                            CHRISTMAS-TIDE.


It was the second Christmas after Magdalen’s bridal, and fires were
kindled in all the rooms at Millbank, and pantries and closets groaned
with their loads and loads of eatables; and Hester Floyd bustled about,
important as ever, ordering everybody except the nurse who had come with
Mrs. Guy Seymour and her baby, the little four-months-old girl, whose
name was Laura Magdalen, and who, with her warm milk and cold milk, and
numerous paraphernalia of babyhood, kept the kitchen a good deal stirred
up, and made Hester chafe a little inwardly. But, then, she said “she
s’posed she must get used to these things,” and her face cleared up, and
her manner was very soft and gentle every time she thought of the crib
in Magdalen’s room, where, under the identical quilt the poor heathen
would never receive, slumbered another baby girl, Magdalen’s and
Roger’s, which had come to Millbank about six weeks before, and over
whose birth great rejoicings were made. _Jessie Morton_ was its name,
and Guy and Alice had stood for it the Sunday before, and with Aunt Pen
were to remain at Millbank through the holidays, and help Magdalen to
entertain the few friends invited to pass the week under Roger’s
hospitable roof.

The world had gone well with Roger since he came back to Millbank.
Everything had prospered with which he had anything to do. The shoe-shop
had been rebuilt, and the mill was never more prosperous, and Roger bade
fair soon to be as rich a man as he had supposed himself to be before
the will was found. On his domestic horizon no cloud, however small, had
ever rested. Magdalen was his all-in-all, his choicest treasure, for
which he daily thanked Heaven more fervently than for all his other
blessings combined. And, amid his prosperity, Roger did not forget to
render back to Heaven a generous portion of his gifts, and many and many
a sad heart was made glad, and many a poor church and clergyman were
helped, quietly, unostentatiously, and oftentimes so secretly that they
knew not whence came the aid, but for which they might have given up in
utter despair and hopelessness.

Magdalen approved and assisted in all her husband’s charities, and her
heart went out after the sad, sorrowful ones, with a yearning desire to
make them as happy as herself. Especially was this the case that
Christmas time, when to all her other blessings a baby had been added,
and she made it a season for extra gifts to the poor and needy who,
through all the long winter, would be more comfortable because of her
generous remembrance.

When the list of guests to be invited for the holidays was being made
out, she sat for a moment by Roger’s side, with her eyes fixed musingly
on the bright fire in the grate. Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Irving’s names
were on the list, with that of Grace and the young clergyman to whom she
was engaged, and Roger waited for Magdalen to say if there was any one
else whom she would have.

“Yes, Roger, there is. Perhaps you won’t approve, but I should like to
ask Mrs. Walter Scott, if you don’t object too much. She has a dreary
time at best, and this will be a change. She may not come, it’s true;
but she will be pleased to know we remember her.”

Roger had entertained the same thought, but refrained from giving
expression to it from a fear lest Magdalen would not like it, and so
that day a cordial invitation to pass the holidays at Millbank was
forwarded to the boarding-house in New York which Mrs. Walter Scott was
actually keeping as a means of support. Her _oil_ had _failed_, as well
as the bank which held her money. “There might be something for her some
time, perhaps, but there was nothing now,” was the report of the lawyer
employed to investigate the matter, and then she began to realize how
utterly destitute she was. Frank could not help her, and as she was too
proud to ask help of Roger, she finally did what so many poor,
discouraged women do, opened a boarding-house in a part of the city
where she would not be likely to meet any of her former friends, and
there, in dull, dingy rooms, with forlorn, half-worn furniture and faded
drapery, all relics like herself of former splendors, she tried to earn
her living. The goods which she managed to smuggle away from Millbank
served her a good turn now, and pawnbrokers and buyers of old silver and
pictures soon made the acquaintance of the tall lady with light hair and
traces of great beauty, who came so often to their shops, and seemed so
sad and desolate. Roger and Magdalen had been to see her once, and Frank
had been many times; but Bell never deigned to notice her, though she
was frequently in New York, and once drove past the boarding-house in a
stylish carriage with her velvets and ermine around her. Mrs. Walter
Scott did not see her, and so that pang was spared her. She had finished
her _book_, but the publishers one and all showed a strange obtuseness
with regard to its worth, and it was put away in her trunk, where others
thing pertaining to the past were buried.

The invitation from Millbank took her by surprise and made her cry a
little, but she hastened to accept it, and was there before her
daughter-in-law, and an occupant of her former room. She was old and
broken, and faded, and poor, and seemed very quiet, and very fond of
Magdalen’s baby, which she kept a great deal in her room, calling
herself its grandma, and thinking, perhaps, of another little one whose
loss no one had regretted save Frank, the father. He came at last with
Bell, who was very polite and gracious to her mother-in-law, whom she
had not expected to meet.

“Of course I am sorry for her,” she said to Magdalen, who was one day
talking of her, and wishing something might be done to better her
condition. “But what can I do. She refuses to receive _money_ from me,
and as for having her in my house no power on earth could induce me to
do that.”

Alas! for Bell. Man proposes, but God disposes, and the thing which no
power on earth could induce her to do was to be forced upon her whether
she would have it or not.

The Christmas dinner was a sumptuous one, and after it was over the
guests repaired to the parlors, where music and a little dance formed a
part of the evening’s entertainment. Mrs. Walter Scott was playing for
the dance. Her fingers had not yet forgotten their skill, and she had
good-naturedly offered to take the place of Grace Burleigh, who gave up
the more willingly because of the young clergyman looking over a book of
engravings and casting wistful glances toward her. Whether it was the
dinner, or the excitement, or a combination of both, none could tell,
but there was suddenly a cessation of the music, a crash among the keys,
and Mrs. Walter Scott turned toward the astonished dancers a face which
frightened them, it was so white, so strange, and so distorted.
Paralysis of one entire side was the verdict of the physician who was
summoned immediately and did all he could for the stricken woman, from
one half of whose body the sense of feeling was gone, and who lay in her
room as helpless as a child. Gradually her face began to look more
natural, her speech came back again, thick and stammering, but tolerably
intelligible, and her limp right hand moved feebly, showing that she was
in part recovering. For three weeks they nursed her with the utmost
care, and Bell stayed by and shrank from the future which she saw before
her, and from which she wished so much to escape. In her womanly pity
and sympathy Magdalen would have kept the paralytic woman at Millbank,
but Roger was not willing that her young life should be burdened in this
way, and he said to Frank and Bell:

“Your mother’s place is with her children. If you are not able to take
care of her, I am willing to help; but I cannot suffer Magdalen to take
that load of care.”

So it was settled, and Bell went home to Boston and prepared an upper
room, which overlooked the Common, and then came back to Millbank, where
they made the invalid ready for the journey. Her face was very white and
there was a look of dreary despair and dread in her eyes, but she
uttered no word of protest against the plan, and thanked Roger for his
kindness, and kissed the little Jessie and cried softly over her, and
whispered to Magdalen: “Come and see me often. It is the only pleasant
thing I can look forward too.”

And then Frank and Roger carried her out to the carriage which took her
to the cars, and that night she heard the winter wind howl around the
windows of the room to which she felt that she was doomed for life, and
which, taking that view of it seemed to her like a prison.

“The Lord is sure to remember first or last,” old Hester said, as she
watched the carriage moving slowly down the avenue, “and though I can’t
say I would have given her the shakin’ palsy if I’d of been the Lord, I
know it’s right and just, and a warnin’ to all liars and deceitful,
snoopin’ critters.”

Still Hester was sorry for the woman, and went to see her almost as
often as Magdalen herself, and once stayed three whole weeks, and took
care of her when Mrs. Franklin was away. Bell did not trouble herself
very much about her mother-in-law, or spend much time with her. She gave
orders that she should be well cared for and have everything she wished
for, and she saw that her orders were obeyed. She also went once a day
to see her and ask if she was comfortable; but after that she felt that
nothing further was incumbent upon her. And so for all Mrs. Walter Scott
knew of the outer world and the life she had once enjoyed so much, she
was indebted to Grace, who before her marriage passed many hours with
the invalid, telling her of things which she thought would interest her,
and sometimes reading to her until she fell asleep. But after Grace was
gone Mrs. Walter Scott’s days passed in dreary loneliness and wretched
discontent. She had no pleasure in recalling the past, and nothing to
look forward to in the future. The remainder of her wretched life she
knew must be passed where she was not wanted, and where her son came but
once a day to see her and that in the evening just after dinner, when he
usually fell asleep while she was trying to talk to him.

Bell would _not_ suffer Frank to go into the city evenings unless she
accompanied him, for she had no fancy for having him brought to her in a
state of intoxication, as was once the case. And Frank, who was a good
deal afraid of her, remained obediently at home, and, preferring his
mother’s society to that of his wife, stayed in the sick-room a portion
of every evening; then, when wholly wearied there, went to his own
apartment and smoked in dreary solitude until midnight.

Such was Frank’s life and such the life of his mother, until there came
to her a change in the form of a second shock, which rendered one hand
and foot entirely helpless, and distorted her features so badly that she
insisted that the blinds should be kept closed and the curtains down, so
that those who came into her room could not see how disfigured she was.
And so in darkness and solitude her days pass drearily, with impatient
longings for the night, and when the night comes she moans and weeps,
and wishes it was morning. Poor woman! She is a burden to herself and a
terrible skeleton to her fashionable daughter-in-law, who in the gayest
scenes in which she mingles never long forgets the paralytic at home,
sinking so fast into utter imbecility, and as she becomes more and more
childish and helpless, requiring more and more care and attention.

The curse of wrong-doing is resting on Bell as well as on her husband
and his mother, and though she is proud and haughty and reserved as
ever, she is far from being happy, and her friends say to each other
that she is growing old and losing her brilliant beauty. Frank often
tells her of it when he has been drinking wine. He is not afraid of her
then, and after he found that it annoyed her he delighted to tease her
about her fading beauty, and to ask why she could not keep as young and
fresh and handsome as Magdalen. There was not a wrinkle in her face, he
said, and she looked younger and handsomer than when he first came home
from Europe and saw her at the Exhibition.

And well might Magdalen retain her girlish beauty, for if ever the
fountain of youth existed anywhere it was in her home at Millbank.
Exceedingly popular with the villagers, idolized by her husband,
perfectly happy in her baby, surrounded by every luxury which wealth can
furnish and every care lifted from her by old Hester’s thoughtfulness,
there has as yet been no shadow, however small, upon her married life,
and her face is as fair and beautiful, and her voice as full of glee as
when she sat with Roger by the river side and felt the first awakenings
of the love which has since grown to be her life.

And now we say farewell to Millbank, knowing that when sorrow comes to
its inmates, as it must some day come, it will not be such a sorrow as
enshrouds that gloomy house in Boston, for there is perfect love and
faith between the husband and the wife, with no sad, dreary retrospects
of wrong to make the present unendurable.

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                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


 1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
      spelling.
 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.