“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.