Millbank;

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.

“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.