It was trimmed with the softest, daintiest lace, for everything pertaining to her wardrobe had been perfect, and she looked fit to grace any assemblage when at last Alice came to take her down to the parlor, where Arthur Grey was waiting for them. CHAPTER XXXVI. MR. GREY AND MAGDALEN. Mr. Grey had heard from his sister that Magdalen came from Millbank, where she had lived in the Irving family until the finding of the will, and for a few moments he had felt as if he could not have her there at Beechwood, recalling by her presence what he would so gladly have forgotten. Why was it that the Irvings, or some one connected with them, were always crossing his path. Surely he had been sufficiently punished for poor Jessie’s death. His most implacable enemy could have asked no greater sorrow for him than he had experienced for years, save at times when in foreign scenes he forgot in part the horror and the burden which since his return to America had pressed heavier than before. “The girl is a lady and very handsome too, though of a far different style from Alice. I hope you will try to like her, Arthur,” his sister had said to him, as she saw a shadow on his face and felt that in some way he was displeased. “Of course I can have nothing against the girl,” Mr. Grey replied, “though there are reasons why any thing connected with the Irvings should be distasteful to me, and I would rather Miss Lennox had come from some other family.” He left his sister then, and went to his own room, where on the wall was still hanging that little pencil sketch of the graveyard in Belvidere, and the barefoot girl standing in the grass with the basket of flowers on her arm. That Miss Lennox was the original of that picture, Mr. Grey did not doubt. She had told him that her name was Magdalen, and that she had always lived at Millbank, so there could be no mistake. He had scarcely thought of that incident for years, but it came back to him now and struck him as very strange that this same barefoot girl should have come there as companion to his daughter. “Should she ever enter this room, and there’s no knowing where Alice may take her, she will see this picture and recognize it at once, and wonder where I found it and possibly recognize me as the stranger who talked with her in the graveyard. It is better out of sight,” he said, as he took the drawing from the wall and laid it away in the drawer where the lock of golden hair was, and the faded bouquet which the “wretch of a Jim Bartlett” once had the credit of stealing. And all this time the man trod softly, as if fearful of being heard and called for, and he looked often toward the door which opened into the adjoining room. But everything was still; the _Burden_ was sleeping at last, lulled into quiet by the sweet music of “Allie’s” voice and the touch of “Allie’s” hands.