“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.