And so the autumn waned, and the Christmas holidays were kept at Millbank on a grand scale, and young people were there from Boston,—friends of Grace and friends of Bell,—and the festivities were kept up sometimes till two or three o’clock in the morning, and some of the young men became very noisy and unmanageable, and among them Charlie, while Frank was undeniably _drunk_, and was carried to his room and given into the care of his wife! Then Bell rose in her might, and locked up the wine and sent the fast young men home, and gave Charlie a lecture he never forgot, and made him join the Good Templars forthwith, and what was better, made him keep the pledge. What she did to Frank nobody knew,—locked him up, the servants said. At all events, he kept his room for two days, and only came out of it after the New Yorkers were gone to their respective homes. Then he looked very meek and crestfallen, like a naughty boy who has been punished, and his mother pitied him and tried to sympathize, and made him so very angry that he was guilty of swearing at her, and bidding her let him and Bell and their affairs alone. And Mrs. Walter Scott did let them alone for a while, and stayed a great deal in her own room, and had her meals served there, and took to writing a book, for which she always thought she had a talent. It was about mismated people, and the good heroine looked very much like Mrs. Walter Scott, and the bad one like Mrs. Franklin Irving, while the villain was a compound of Judge Burleigh, and Charlie, and Holt, the horse-jockey. CHAPTER L. ROGER. Frank had invited Roger to spend Christmas at Millbank, but Roger had declined, and had passed the holidays in his usual way at Schodick, where there had come to him a letter from Arthur Grey, who, in referring to the past, exonerated Jessie from all blame, and asked Roger’s forgiveness for the great wrong done to him. Then he thanked him for his kindness to Magdalen, and closed by saying: “Magdalen has been very anxious for you to come to Beechwood, and I should now extend an invitation for you to do so, were it not that we have decided to leave at once for Europe. We sail in the ‘Persia’ next week, immediately after my daughter’s marriage, which will be a very quiet affair. Hoping to see and know you at some future time, I am “Yours truly, ARTHUR GREY.” This letter had been delayed for some reason, and it did not reach Roger until a week after it was written, and then there came in the same mail a newspaper from New York, directed by Magdalen herself. Around a short paragraph was the faint tracing of her pencil, and Roger read that among the passengers the “Persia” would take out were Mr. Arthur Grey and daughter, Mrs. Penelope Seymour, and Mr. Guy Seymour and lady. Magdalen had underscored the “Mr. Guy Seymour and lady,” and upon the margin had written: