Millbank;

by Mary Jane Holmes

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.