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.