“I should never have recognized you but for Frank,” he said. “You have changed so much from the little girl who leaned over the gate to bid me good-by. Do you remember it?”
Magdalen did remember it, and her sorrow at parting with Roger, and could hardly realize that he had come back to her again. He was very kind, very attentive; and she felt a thrill of pride as she walked through the halls or talked to her companions, with Roger and Frank on either side of her, Frank so absorbed in her as to pay no heed to those around him, while Roger never for a moment forgot that something was due to others as well as to Magdalen. He saw her all the time, and heard every word she said, and marked how well she said it, but he was attentive and courteous to others, and made himself so agreeable to Nellie Freeman, to whom Magdalen introduced him, that she dreamed of him that night, and went next morning to the depot on pretence of bidding Magdalen good-by a second time, but really for the sake of seeing Mr. Irving.
As Roger was anxious to return home as soon as possible, they left Charlestown on an early train and reached Millbank at two o’clock. Dinner was waiting for them, while Hester in her clean brown gingham, with her white apron tied around her waist, stood in the door, ready to welcome her young people.
Magdalen was her first object of attention, and the old lady kissed her lovingly, and then went with her to her pleasant chamber, which looked so cool and airy with its matting, and curtains of muslin looped with blue, and its snowy white bed in the corner. She could not change her dress before dinner, for her trunks had not been sent up, but she bathed her heated face, and put on a fresh pair of cuffs and a clean linen collar, and then, with her damp hair one mass of waves and little curls, she went down to the dining-room, where Roger met her at the door and led her to the head of his table, installing her as mistress, and bidding her do the honors as the young lady of the house. In spite of her gray dress, unrelieved by any color except the garnet pin which fastened her collar, Magdalen looked very handsome as she presided at Roger’s table, and her white hands moved gracefully among the silver service; for there was fragrant coffee for dinner, with rich sweet cream from the morning’s milk, and Hester, who cared little for fashions, had sent it up with the meats, because she knew Roger would like it best that way.
The dinner over, the party separated, Magdalen going to her room to put her things away, Frank sauntering off to the summer-house, with his box of cigars, and Roger joining Hester, who had so much to tell him of the affairs at Millbank since he went away.
CHAPTER XVI.
LIFE AT MILLBANK.
Magdalen was very fresh and bright next morning when she went down to breakfast, in her white cambric wrapper, just short enough in front to show her small, trim foot and well-shaped ankle, which Frank saw at once. There were no wrinkles in her stockings, and the little high-heeled slippers were as unlike as possible to the big shoes which he remembered so well, wondering at the change, and never guessing that Magdalen’s persisting in wearing shoes too large for her while growing, had helped to form the little feet which he admired so much as they tripped up and down the stairs or through the halls, with him always hovering near. Her bright, sprightly manner, which had in it a certain spice of recklessness and daring, just suited him, and as the days went by, and he became more and more fascinated with her, he followed her like her shadow, feeling glad that so much of Roger’s attention was necessarily given to his agents and overseers, who came so often to Millbank, that he at last opened an office in the village, where he spent most of his time, thus leaving Frank free to walk and talk with Magdalen as much as he pleased. And he improved his opportunity, and was seldom absent from her side more than a few moments at a time. At first this devotion was very gratifying to Magdalen, who still regarded Frank as the hero of her childhood, but after a few weeks of constant intercourse with him, the spell which had bound her was broken, and she began to tire a little of his attentions, and wish sometimes to be alone.
One afternoon they were sitting together by the river, on the mossy bank, beneath the large buttonwood tree, where they had spent so many pleasant hours in the years gone by, and Frank was talking of his future, and deploring his poverty as a hindrance to his ever becoming popular or even successful in anything.
“Now, if I were Roger,” said he, “with his twenty-five thousand a year, it would make a great difference. But here I am, most twenty-seven years old, with no profession, no means of earning an honest livelihood, and only the yearly interest of six thousand dollars, which, if I were to indulge my tastes, would barely keep me in cigars and gloves and neckties. I tell you what, Magdalen, it’s mighty inconvenient to be so poor.”