Millbank;

by Mary Jane Holmes

And the tall young man bent down to kiss the little girl, who was very glad to see him, and who told him how dull it had been at Millbank, and how Aleck said there was good fishing now in the creek, and a great many squirrels in the woods, though she did not want him to kill them, and that he was going to have the blue room instead of his old one, which was damp from a leak around the chimney; that she had put lots of flowers in it, and a photograph of herself, in a little frame made of twigs. This last she had meant to keep a secret, and surprise the young man, who was sure to be so delighted. But she had let it out, and she rattled on about it, till the house was reached, and Frank stood in the blue room, where the wonderful picture was.

“Here, Frank, this is it. This is me;” and she directed his attention at once to the picture of herself, sitting up very stiff and prim, with mitts on her hands, and Hester’s best collar pinned around her high-necked dress, and Bessie’s handkerchief, trimmed with cotton lace, fastened conspicuously at her belt.

Frank laughed a loud, hearty laugh, which had more of ridicule in it than approval; and Magdalen, who knew him so well, detected the ridicule, and knew he was making fun of what she thought so nice.

“You don’t like it, and I got it on purpose for you and Mr. Roger, and sold strawberries to pay for it, because Hester said a present we earned ourselves was always worth more than if we took somebody else’s money to buy it,” Magdalen said, her lip beginning to quiver and her eyes to fill with tears.

“The man was a bungler who took you in that stiff position,” Frank replied, “and your dress is too old. I’ll show you one I have of Alice Grey, and maybe take you to Springfield, where you can sit just as she does.”

This did not mend the matter much, and Magdalen felt as if something had been lost from the brightness of the day, and wondered if Roger too would laugh at her photograph, which had gone to him in Hester’s letter. Frank knew he had wounded her, and was very kind and gracious to her by way of making amends, and gave her the book with colored plates which he had bought for Alice Grey just before she left New Haven so suddenly. It happened to be in his trunk, which was brought from the station that night, and he blessed his good stars that it was there, and gave it as a peace-offering to Magdalen, whose face cleared entirely; and who next day went with him down to the old haunt by the river, and fastened to his hook the worms she dug before he was up; and told him all about the stranger in the graveyard, and about her going to school. And then she asked him about Alice Grey, and the picture which he had of her.

“Did she give it to you?” Magdalen asked; but Frank affected not to hear her, and pretended to be busy with something which hurt his foot. He did not care to tell her that he had bought the picture at the gallery where it was taken. He would rather she should think Alice gave it to him, and after a moment he took it from his pocket and handed it to Magdalen, who stood for a long time gazing at it without saying a word. It was the picture of a sweet-faced young girl, whose short, chestnut hair rippled in waves all over her head just as Magdalen’s did. Her dress was a white muslin, with clusters of tucks nearly to the waist, and her little rosetted slipper showed below the hem. Her head was leaning upon one hand, and the other held a spray of flowers, while around her were pictures, and vases, and statuettes, with her straw hat lying at her feet, where she had evidently thrown it when she sat down to rest. It was a beautiful picture, and nothing could be more graceful than Alice’s attitude, or afford a more striking contrast to the stiff position of poor Mag in that picture on Frank’s table, in the blue room. Magdalen saw the difference at once, and ceased to wonder at Frank’s non-appreciation of her photograph. It was a botch, compared with Alice’s, and she herself was a botch, an awkward, unsightly thing in her long dress and coarse shoes, two sizes too big for her, such as she always insisted upon wearing for fear of pinching her toes. She had them on now, and a pair of stockings which wrinkled on the top of her foot, and she glanced first at them and then at the delicate slipper in the picture, and the small round waist, and pretty tucked skirt, and then, greatly to Frank’s amazement, burst into a flood of tears.

“I don’t wonder you like her best,” she said, when Frank asked what was the matter. “I don’t look like that. I can’t, I haven’t any slippers, nor any muslin dress; and if I had, Hester wouldn’t let me have it tucked, it’s such hard work to iron it. Alice has a mother, I know,—a good, kind mother, to take care of her and make her look like other little girls. Oh, I wish her mother was mine, or I had one just like her.”

Alas, poor Magdalen. She little guessed the truth, or dreamed how dark a shadow lay across the pathway of pretty Alice Grey. She only thought of her as handsome and graceful and happy in mother and friends, and she wept on for a moment, while Frank tried to comfort her.

There was no more fishing that day, for Maggie’s head began to ache, and they went back to Millbank, across the pleasant fields, in the quiet of the summer afternoon. Frank missed Magdalen’s photograph from his table the next day, and had he been out by the little brook which ran through the grounds, he would have seen the fragments of it floating down the stream, with Magdalen standing by and watching them silently. They fished again after a day or two, and hunted in the woods and sat together beneath an old gnarled oak where Frank grew confidential, and told Magdalen of his moneyed troubles, and wondered if Roger would allow him more than five thousand when he came of age. And then he inadvertently alluded to the missing will, and told Magdalen about it, and said it might be well enough for her to hunt for it occasionally, as she had access to all parts of the house. And Magdalen promised that she would, without a thought of how the finding of it might affect Roger. She would not for the world have harmed one whom she esteemed and venerated as she did Roger, but he was across the sea, and Frank had her ear and her sympathy. It would be a fine thing to find the will, particularly as Frank had promised her a dress like Alice Grey’s and a piano, if she succeeded.