“Yes, and it’s coming back to me. That was baby’s name,—the one I gave her to please your father, and by and by I’ll think just where it is.” Alice shot a quick, inquiring glance at Magdalen, as if to ask how much of their family history her mother had revealed, but Magdalen merely said: “She seems to think there is a baby in the cradle,—a baby whom she says she lost or mislaid. It died, I suppose.” “Poor mother, she has suffered so much for that dead child,” was Alice’s only reply, as she stood caressing her mother’s hair. Then she tried to tell her something of her visit to New York and the rare music she had heard; but Mrs. Grey did not care for that, and said a little impatiently, “Don’t bother me now; I’m listening to the story. Go on, Magdalen. He was just going to relight his lamp, and I want it over with, for I know how he felt. My lamp has gone out, and all the falling stars in heaven can’t light it.” “I see you are preferred to me,” Alice said to Magdalen; “but if you do her good, and I can see that you have already, I bless you for it. Poor, dear mother, who has never known a rational moment since I can remember.” She kissed her mother again, and then left the room, while Magdalen went on with her fairy tale, parts of which she repeated twice, and even thrice, before her auditor was satisfied. After that Magdalen spent most of her time with the poor lunatic, who, if she attempted to leave her, would say so pleadingly, “Stay with me, Magda; don’t go. It’s beginning to come back.” She called her _Magda_ altogether, and though that name was sacred to Roger’s memory, Magdalen felt as if there was a blessing in the way the poor invalid spoke it, and her heart throbbed with a strange kind of feeling every time she heard the “Ma-ag-da,” as Mrs. Grey pronounced it, dwelling upon the first syllable, and shortening up the last. Mr. Grey was still absent, glad, it would seem, of an excuse to stay away from the tiresome burden at home. He had gone to Cincinnati, to look after some property which belonged to his wife, and as there was some difficulty in proving his claim to a portion of it, which had more than quadrupled in value and was now in great demand, it was desirable that all doubts should be forever settled; so he wrote to Alice, that he should stay until matters were satisfactorily adjusted. He had heard of Magdalen’s kind offices in the sick-room, and he sent a note to her, adjuring her to stay with Mrs. Grey so long as her influence over her was what Alice had reported it to be.