University of Virginia Library

33. CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

WANTED, — A young woman of pleasing address, and
cultivated manners, as companion for a young lady
who suffers greatly from ill health and nervous depression.
It is desirable that the applicant should be both a
good reader and good musician.

“Address, for four weeks,

“Mrs. Penelope Seymour,

`St. Denis, New York.'

This advertisement was in the Herald, which Frank laid
upon the table in the room where both his mother and Magdalen
were sitting. It was four weeks since Magdalen's first
awakening to perfect consciousness after her long illness, and in
that time she had improved rapidly. She went to the table
now, and had ridden two or three times with Mrs. Walter Scott,
between whom and herself there was a kind of tacit understanding
that, so long as they remained together, each was to be
as civil and polite to the other as possible, knowing the while
that each would be glad to be relieved of the other's society.
Frank had made several efforts to ride with Magdalen. He
wanted to exhibit her in town with his new bays, which he had
bought for an enormous sum. But Magdalen always made
some excuse; and without seeming to do it, Mrs. Walter Scott
helped her to avoid him, so that he had had no opportunity for
seeing her alone, since the interview in her chamber, when she
told him her answer was final, and he had refused to consider it
as such. He had been invited to join a party of young men
from Hartford and Springfield, who were going on a fishing excursion
to the Thousand Islands and from thence into Canada,
if there should prove to be good hunting there, and when

he brought the Herald into the sitting-room, he came also to
say good-by to his mother and Magdalen.

“Perhaps I shall be gone six weeks,” he said, in reply to his
mother's questions as to his return, and he looked at Magdalen
to see how she would take it.

She was relieved rather than sorry, and he saw it, and felt a
good deal chagrined, as he shook her hand at parting, and received
her kind wishes for a pleasant trip. After he was gone,
she took up the Herald, and ran her eye over its columns, till
she reached the list of “Wanted.” She had studied that list
before, for she had it in her mind to find some situation, as
teacher or governess, which would take her from Millbank and
make her independent of every one. She saw the advertisement
for a young woman, who was “a good reader, and good
musician.” She knew she was both, and knew, too, that she
was of “pleasing address” and “cultivated manners.” She
did not object to being a companion for an invalid. It would
be easier than a teacher's life, and she would write to “Mrs.
Penelope Seymour” and see what that lady had to say. Accordingly,
the very next mail which went to New York from
Belvidere carried a letter of inquiry from Magdalen to Mrs.
Seymour, whose reply came at once; a short note, written in a
plain, square hand, and directly to the point. There had been
many applications for the situation, but something in Miss
Lennox's manner of expressing herself had turned the scale in
her favor, and Mrs. Seymour would be glad to see her at the
St. Denis, as soon as possible. Terms, five hundred dollars a
year, with a great deal of leisure.

Five hundred dollars a year seemed a vast amount of money
to Magdalen, who had never earned a penny since the berries
picked for that photograph sent to Roger, and she began at
once to think how she would lay it up, until she had enough to
make it worth giving to Roger, who should not know from
whence it came, so adroitly would she manage. She had in her
own mind accepted the situation, but, before she wrote again to
Mrs. Seymour, it would be proper to lay the case before Mrs.

Walter Scott, and, for form's sake, ask her advice. That lady
was delighted, for now a riddance from Magdalen was sure
without her intervention, but she kept her delight to herself,
and seemed, for several minutes, to be considering. Then she
said something about its not being what her son expected or
wished, and asked if Magdalen was fully resolved not to marry
Frank.

Magdalen knew this to be a mere ruse, done for politeness'
sake, and she bit her lip to keep from answering hastily.

Her decision was final, she said. She should probably never
marry any one certainly not Frank; and she could not remain
at Millbank longer than was absolutely necessary. Mrs. Irving
must know how very unpleasant it was, and what an awkward
position it placed her in.

Mrs. Irving did know, and fully appreciated Magdalen's nice
sense of propriety, and she was very gracious to the young
girl, and said she was welcome to stay at Millbank as long as
she liked, but, if she preferred to be less dependent, she respected
the feeling, and thought, perhaps, Mrs. Seymour's offer
was as good as she would have, and it might be well to accept it.

And so it was accepted, and Magdalen made haste to get
away, before Frank's return. She hunted for the little dress,
impelled by a feeling that somewhere in the wide world,
into which she was going, she might find her mother, and
she would have every possible link by which the identity could
be proven. Mrs. Walter Scott had told her that Hester Floyd
took the chest of linen in which the dress was laid and so she
wrote to Hester the letter we have seen. Once she thought
to send some word direct to Roger, but her pride came up to
prevent that. He had never written to her, or sent to inquire
for her that she knew of, for Frank had not told her of a letter
written on the prairies, in which Roger had inquired anxiously
for her and asked to be remembered. Roger did not care for
her messages, she thought, and she wrote as formally as possible,
and then, with a strange inconsistency, expected that Roger
would answer the letter. But only the package came, directed

in his handwriting, and Magdalen could have cried when she
saw there was nothing more. She cut the direction out, and
put it away in a little box, with all the letters Roger had written
her from Europe, and then went steadily on with her preparations
for leaving Millbank.

It was known, now, in town, that Magdalen was going away,
and it created quite a sensation among her circle of friends.
She was not to marry Frank. She was not as mercenary as
many had believed her to be, and the tide turned in her favor,
and Mrs. Johnson called with her daughter Nellie, now Mrs.
Marsh, of Boston, and all the élite of the town came up to see
her, and without expressing it in words, managed to let her
know how much she had risen in their estimation by the step
she was taking. They could not quite understand it all, but
they spoke encouragingly to her, and invited her to their
houses, whenever she chose to come, and went to the depot
to see her off, on the bright autumnal day when she finally left
Millbank for a home with Mrs. Penelope Seymour.