University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.
MILLBANK AFTER THE DAY OF THE FUNERAL.

MRS. WALTER SCOTT could not easily give up her
belief in a later will, and after everything about the
house was quiet, and the tired inmates asleep, she
went from one vacant room to another, her slippered feet
treading lightly and giving back no sound to betray her to any
listening ear, as she glided through the lower rooms, and then
ascended to the garret, where was a barrel of old receipts and
letters, and papers of no earthly use whatever. These she examined

minutely, but in vain. The missing document was not
there, and she turned to Jessie's picture, and was just bending
down for a look at that, when a sudden noise startled her, and,
turning round, she saw a head, surmounted by a broad-frilled
cap, appearing up the stairway. It was Hester's head, and
Hester herself came into full view, with a short night-gown on,
and her feet encased in a pair of Aleck's felt slippers, which,
being a deal too big, clicked with every step, and made the
noise Mrs. Walter Scott first heard.

“Oh, you're at it, be you!” Hester said, putting her tallow
candle down on the floor. “I thought I heard somethin'
snoopin' round, and got up to see what 'twas. I guess I'll
hunt too, if you like, for I'm afraid you might set the house
afire.”

“Thank you; I'm through with my search for to-night,” was
Mrs. Walter Scott's lofty answer, as she swept down the garret
stairs past Hester Floyd and into her own room.

There was a bitter hatred existing between these two women
now, and had the will been found, Hester's tenure at Millbank
would have hung upon a very slender thread. But the will
was not found, neither that night nor the next day, when
Mrs. Walter Scott searched openly and thoroughly with Roger
as her aid, for which Hester called him a fool, and Frank, who
was beginning to get an inkling of matters, a “spooney.”
Mrs. Walter Scott was outgeneralled, and the second day after
the funeral she took her departure and went back to Lexington
Avenue, where her first act was to dismiss the extra servant
she had hired when Millbank seemed in her grasp, while her
second was to countermand her orders for so much mourning.

If Squire Irving had left her nothing, she, of course, had
nothing to expend in crape and bombazine, and when she next
appeared on Broadway, there were pretty green strings on her
straw hat, and a handsome thread-lace veil in place of the long
crape which had covered her face at the funeral. Mrs. Walter
Scott had dropped back into her place in New York, and for a
little time our story has no more to do with her ladyship, but

keeps us at Millbank, where Roger, with Col. Johnson as his
guardian, reigned the triumphant heir.

As was natural, the baby was the first object considered after
the excitement of Mrs. Walter Scott's departure had subsided.
What should be done with it? Col. Johnson asked Roger this
question in Hester's presence, and Roger answered at once, “I
shall keep her and educate her as if she were my sister. If
Hester feels that the care will be too much for her, I will get a
nurse till the child is older.”

“Yes; and then I'll have both nuss and baby to 'tend to,”
Hester exclaimed. “If it must stay, I'll see to it myself, with
Ruey's help. I can't have a nuss under foot, doin' nothin'.”

This was not exactly what Roger wanted. He had not yet
lost sight of that picture of the French nurse in a cap, to whom
Hester did not bear the slightest resemblance; but he saw that
Hester's plan was better than his, and quietly gave up the
French nurse and the pleasant nursery, but he ordered the crib,
and the baby-wagon and the bright blanket with it, and then
he said to Hester, “Baby must have a name,” adding that
once, when the woman in the cars was hushing it, she had
called it something which sounded like Magdalen. “That you
know was mother's second name,” he said. “So suppose we
call her `Jessie Magdalen;”' but against that Hester arrayed
herself so fiercely that he gave up “Jessie,” but insisted upon
“Magdalen,” and added to it his own middle name, “Lennox.”

There was a doubt in his mind as to whether she had ever
been baptized, and thinking it better to be baptized twice
than not at all, he determined to have the ceremony performed,
and Mrs. Col. Johnson consented to stand as sponsor
for the child, whom Hester carried to the church, performing
well her part as nurse, and receiving back into her arms the
little Magdalen Lennox, who had crowed, and laughed, and
put her fat hand to her head, to wipe off the drops of water
which fell upon her as she was “received into Christ's flock
and signed with His sign” upon her brow.

During the entire summer Roger remained at Millbank,

where he made a few changes, both in the grounds and in the
house, which began to wear a more modern look than during
the old squire's life. Some of the shrubbery was rooted up,
and a few of the oldest trees cut down, so that the sunshine
could find freer access to the rooms, which had rarely been used
since Jessie went away, but which Roger opened to the warmth
and sunlight of summer. On the wall, in the library, Jessie's
picture was hung. It had been retouched and brightened up
in Springfield, and the beautiful face always seemed to smile a
welcome on Roger whenever he came where it was. On the
monument in the graveyard Jessie's name was cut beneath her
husband's, and every Saturday Roger carried a bouquet of
flowers from the Millbank garden, and laid it on the grassy
mound, in memory, not so much of his father, as of the young
mother whose grave was in the sea. Thither he sometimes
brought little Magdalen, who could walk quite easily now, and
it was not an uncommon sight, on pleasant summer days, to
see the boy seated under the evergreens which overshadowed
his father's grave, while toddling among the gray head-stones
of the dead, or playing in the gravel-walks, was Magdalen, with
her blanket pinned about her neck, and her white sun-bonnet
tied beneath her chin. Thus the summer passed, and in the
autumn Roger went away to Andover, where he was to finish
preparing for college, instead of returning to his old tutor in
St. Louis. After his departure, the front rooms above and
below were closed, and Magdalen, who took more kindly to
the parlors than to the kitchen, was taught that such things
were only for her when Master Roger was at home; and if, by
chance, she stole through an open door into the forbidden
rooms, she was brought back at once to her corner in the
kitchen. Not roughly though, for Hester Floyd was always
kind to the child, — first, for Roger's sake, and then for the
affection she herself began to feel for the little one, whose
beauty, and bright, pretty ways everybody praised.

And now, while the doors and shutters of Millbank are
closed, and only the rear portion of the building is open, we

pass, without comment, over a period of eleven years, and
open the story again, on a bright day in summer, when the sky
was as blue and the air as bland as was the air and sky of
Italy, where Roger Irving was travelling.