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.