Millbank; Or Roger Irving's Ward: A Novel
by Mary Jane Holmes

Description

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1871. Excerpt: ... and gold, and Millbank was still beautiful with its autumn flowers, Mrs. Franklin Irving came up to visit Mr. and Mrs. Roger, and was received by them with all the cordiality due so near a relative. Not by a word or look did she betray the slightest regret for the past, when she had been mistress where she was now only a guest. Millbank was to her as any stranger's house, and she bore herself naturally and pleasantly, and made herself very agreeable to Roger, and devoted herself to Magdalen, whom she liked so much, and was civil and almost kind to her husband, who was still there, and as Hester said, "just as shiftless as ever." Bell saw the state of affairs, and while she despised her husband more than ever for his indolence and lack of sensibility, she resolved to give Magdalen a rest, and leave her alone with Roger for a time; so when in November she returned to Boston, she invited Frank to go with her, and secured him a place as book-keeper in a merchant's counting-house, and stimulated perhaps by the perfect happiness and confidence she had seen existing between Roger and Magdalen, tried by being kind and even deferential to him to mould him into something of which she would not be so terribly ashamed as she was now of the careless, shambling, listless, lazy man, whom everybody knew as Mrs. Franklin Irving's husband. CHAPTER LVII. CHRISTMAS-TIDE. T was the second Christmas after Magdalen's bridal, and fires were kindled in all the rooms at Millbank, and pantries and closets groaned with their loads and loads of eatables; and Hester Floyd bustled about, important as ever, ordering everybody except the nurse who had come 1 with Mrs. Guy Seymour and her baby, the little four-months- old girl, whose name was Laura Magdalen, and who, with her warm milk and cold milk, and numerous pa...