Millbank;

by Mary Jane Holmes

Roger had managed to have the piano brought to the house while she was away, intending it as a surprise, and he enjoyed it thoroughly, and thought how beautiful she was, with those tear-drops glittering in her great dark eyes. She was one of whom any parent might be proud, and he was proud of her, and called himself her father, and tried to believe that he felt toward her as a father would feel toward his daughter; but somehow that little episode down by the river, when she had knelt before him, with her hands upon his arm, and her flushed, eager face so near to his, had stirred a new set of feelings in his heart and made him, for the first time in his life, averse to being addressed by her as “Mr. Irving.” And when she asked him what she could do to show how glad she was, he said,

“I know you are glad,—I can see it in your eyes, and I want nothing in return, unless, indeed, you drop the formal title of Mr. Irving, and give me the more familiar one of Roger. Couldn’t you do that, Magda?”

Magdalen would as soon have thought of calling the clergyman of the parish by his first name, as to have addressed her guardian as Roger,—and she shook her head laughingly.

“No, Mr. Irving, you can never be Roger to me,—it would bring you too much on a level with Frank, and that I should not like.”

Perhaps Roger was not altogether displeased with her answer, for he smiled kindly upon her, and asked if he would have to fall very far to reach his nephew’s level. “In some respects, yes,” was Magdalen’s reply, as she commenced a brilliant polka which brought Frank himself into the parlor, followed by his mother, who kissed Magdalen lovingly, and then stood with both her hands folded on the young girl’s shoulder as she went on playing one piece after another, and making such melody as had not been heard since the days when Jessie was queen of Millbank and played in the twilight for her gray-haired husband.

Mrs. Walter Scott was very sociable and kind and conciliatory, and lavish of her praises of Millbank, which she admired so much, saying she was half sorry she came, as it would be so hard to go back to her close, hot rooms in New York. Then she said she expected to have her house on her hands altogether, as her tenants were intending to go South in November, and how she should live without the rent she did not know.

“Perhaps I can suggest something which will meet your approval,” Roger said; and then he proceeded to speak of his plan that his sister should stay at Millbank with Magdalen. Mrs. Walter Scott had never thought of such a thing,—she did not know that she could live out of New York,—and nothing but her love for Magdalen and her desire to serve Roger, who had done so much for Frank, could induce her to consider the proposition for a moment. This was what she said; but when five hundred dollars a year was added to her fondness for Magdalen and her desire to serve Roger, she consented to martyr herself, and accepted the situation with as much amiability and resignation as if it had not been the very object for which she had been striving ever since her first visit to Charlestown, when she foresaw what Magdalen would be, and what Roger would do for her. It was decided that Frank, too, should remain at Millbank as a clerk in Roger’s office, where he pretended to study law, and where, after his writing was done, he spent his whole time in smoking cigars and following Magdalen, who sometimes teased him unmercifully, and then drove him nearly wild with her lively sallies and bewitching ways. They were very gay at Millbank that autumn; and in the sad years which followed, Magdalen often looked back upon that time as the happiest period of her life.

Roger was naturally domestic in his tastes, and would at any time have preferred a quiet evening at home with his family to the gayest assemblage; but his sister-in-law made him believe that, as the master of Millbank, he owed a great deal to society, and so he threw open his doors to his friends, who gladly availed themselves of anything which would vary the monotony of their lives. Always bright and sparkling and brilliant, Magdalen reigned triumphant as the belle on all occasions. She was a general favorite, and as the autumn advanced, the young maidens of Belvidere,—who had dreamed that to be mistress of Millbank might be an honor in store for one of them,—began to notice the soft, tender look in Roger’s eyes as they followed Magdalen’s movements, whether in the merry dance, of which she never tired, or at the piano, where she excelled all others in the freshness of her voice and the brilliancy of her execution. Frank, too, with his gentlemanly manners and foreign air, and Mrs. Walter Scott, with her city style and elegance, added to the attractions at Millbank, where everything wore so bright a hue, with no shadow to foretell the dark storm which was coming. The will seemed to be entirely forgotten, though Roger dreamed once that it had been found,—and by Magdalen, too,—and that, with an aching heart, he read that he was a beggar, made so by his father, and that he had gone out from his beautiful home penniless, but not alone, or utterly hopeless, for Magdalen was with him,—her dark eyes beamed upon him, and her hands ministered to him just as she had said they would, should he ever come to what he had.

Roger was glad this was only a dream,—glad to awake in his own pleasant chamber and hear the robins sing in the maple-tree outside, and see from his window the scarlet tints with which the autumnal frosts were beginning to touch the maples. He was strongly attached to his beautiful home, and to lose it now would be a bitter trial.

But he had no expectation of losing it. It belonged to him without a question, and all through the autumn months he went on beautifying and improving it, and studying constantly some new surprise which would add to the happiness of those he had gathered around him, and whose comfort he held far above his own. Wholly unselfish, and liberal almost to a fault, he spent his money freely, not only for those of his own household, but for the poor, who had known and loved him when a boy, and who now idolized and honored him as a man, and blessed the day which had brought him back to their midst,—the kind and considerate employer of many of them,—the friend of the destitute and needy,—the cultivated gentleman in society, and the courteous master of Millbank.