CONTENTS.
| Chapter | Page | |
|---|---|---|
| I. | Expecting Roger | [9] |
| II. | Roger’s Story | [19] |
| III. | What they did at Millbank | [27] |
| IV. | The Morning of the Funeral | [33] |
| V. | The Funeral | [41] |
| VI. | The Evening after the Funeral | [45] |
| VII. | Millbank after the Day of the Funeral | [55] |
| VIII. | The Stranger in Belvidere | [59] |
| IX. | A Stir at Millbank | [67] |
| X. | Frank at Millbank | [74] |
| XI. | Roger’s Letters and the Result | [85] |
| XII. | Alice Grey | [92] |
| XIII. | A Retrospect | [104] |
| XIV. | In the Evening | [108] |
| XV. | Roger and Frank | [110] |
| XVI. | Life at Millbank | [117] |
| XVII. | Love-Making at Millbank | [130] |
| XVIII. | The Loose Board in the Garret | [138] |
| XIX. | The Beginning of Trouble | [146] |
| XX. | What Magdalen found in the Garret | [156] |
| XXI. | Frank and the Will | [162] |
| XXII. | Mrs. Walter Scott and the Will | [172] |
| XXIII. | Roger and the Will | [178] |
| XXIV. | Hester and the Will | [186] |
| XXV. | Magdalen and Roger | [198] |
| XXVI. | ‘Squire Irving’s Letter | [204] |
| XXVII. | Jessie’s Letter | [208] |
| XXVIII. | The World and the Will | [216] |
| XXIX. | Poor Magda | [223] |
| XXX. | Leaving Millbank | [227] |
| XXXI. | The Home in Schodick | [236] |
| XXXII. | Magdalen’s Decision | [241] |
| XXXIII. | The Beginning of the End | [250] |
| XXXIV. | Mrs. Penelope Seymour | [253] |
| XXXV. | Alice and Magdalen | [262] |
| XXXVI. | Mr. Grey and Magdalen | [265] |
| XXXVII. | Life at Beechwood | [273] |
| XXXVIII. | The Mystery at Beechwood | [280] |
| XXXIX. | Magdalen and the Mystery | [284] |
| XL. | A Glimmer of Light | [293] |
| XLI. | Mrs. Seymour and Magdalen | [298] |
| XLII. | In Cincinnati | [308] |
| XLIII. | In Cynthiana | [314] |
| XLIV. | Father and Daughter | [320] |
| XLV. | At Beechwood | [325] |
| XLVI. | The Clouds break over Beechwood | [333] |
| XLVII. | Bell Burleigh | [337] |
| XLVIII. | The Wedding, and Hester Floyd’s Account of it | [345] |
| XLIX. | How they lived at Millbank | [354] |
| L. | Roger | [362] |
| LI. | Magdalen is coming Home | [369] |
| LII. | Millbank is sold at Auction | [373] |
| LIII. | Magdalen at Roger’s Home | [378] |
| LIV. | Roger and Magdalen | [382] |
| LV. | Millbank is clear of its Old Tenants | [388] |
| LVI. | The Bridal | [391] |
| LVII. | Christmas-Tide | [395] |
MILLBANK;
OR,
Roger Irving’s Ward.
CHAPTER I.
EXPECTING ROGER.
Every window and shutter at Millbank was closed. Knots of crape were streaming from the bell-knobs, and all around the house there was that deep hush which only the presence of death can inspire. Indoors there was a kind of twilight gloom pervading the rooms, and the servants spoke in whispers whenever they came near the chamber where the old squire lay in his handsome coffin, waiting the arrival of Roger, who had been in St. Louis when his father died, and who was expected home on the night when our story opens. Squire Irving had died suddenly in the act of writing to his boy Roger, and when found by old Aleck, his hand was grasping the pen, and his head was resting on the letter he would never finish. “Heart disease” was the verdict of the inquest, and then the electric wires carried the news of his decease to Roger, and to the widow of the squire’s eldest son, who lived on Lexington avenue, New York, and who always called herself Mrs. Walter Scott Irving, fancying that in some way the united names of two so illustrious authors as Irving and Scott shed a kind of literary halo upon one who bore them.
Mrs. Walter Scott Irving had been breakfasting in her back parlor when the news came to her of her father-in-law’s sudden death, and to say that she was both astonished and shocked, is only to do her justice, but to insinuate that she was sorry, is quite another thing. She was not sorry, though her smooth white brow contracted into wrinkles, and she tried to speak very sadly and sorrowfully as she said to her son Frank, a boy of nine or more,—
“Frank, your grandfather is dead; poor man, you’ll never see him again.”