“That settles the business for him,” she said. “He’ll never marry now, and I may as well send off to the heathen that cribby quilt I’ve been piecin’ at odd spells, thinkin’ the time might come when Roger’s wife would find it handy.” And as she thus soliloquized old Hester washed her tea-dishes by the kitchen sink and two great tears rolled down her nose and dropped into the dish water. After that she never mentioned Magdalen, and as the quilt was not quite finished, she laid it away in the candle-box cradle which stood in the attic chamber, and over which she sometimes bent for five minutes or more, while her thoughts were back in the past; and she saw again the little girl who had sat so often in that cradle, and whose dear little feet were wandering now amid the wonders of the Old World. And so the winter, and the spring, and the summer went by, and in the autumn Frank came for a few days to Schodick, looking almost as old as Roger, and a great deal stouter and redder in the face than when we saw him last; while a certain inflamed look in the eye told that Bell’s arguments on the subject of temperance had not prevailed with him as effectually as they had with her brother Charlie. Frank’s love of wine had increased and grown into a fondness for brandy, but during his stay in Schodick he abstained from both, and seemed much like himself. Very freely he discussed his affairs with Roger, who pitied him from his heart, for he saw that his life was not a pleasant one. With regard to his domestic troubles, Roger forbore to make any remarks, but he advised to the best of his ability about the business matters, which were not in a very good condition. The shoe-shop had not been rebuilt; there was always trouble with the factory hands; they were either quitting entirely, or striking for higher wages; and the revenues were not what Frank thought they ought to be. Ready money was hard to get; and he was oftentimes troubled for means to pay the household expenses, which were frightfully large. As well as he could, Roger comforted the disheartened man, and promised to go to Millbank soon and see what he could do toward smoothing and lubricating the business machinery, and Frank while listening to him began to feel very hopeful of the future, and grew light-hearted and cheerful again, and ready to talk of something besides himself. And so it came about, as he sat with Roger one evening, he said to him: “By the way, Roger, do you ever hear from the Greys? Do you know where they are?” Roger did not; he had never heard from them, or of them, he said, since the letter from Mr. Grey, announcing Magdalen’s approaching marriage with Guy Seymour. “Announcing _what_?” Frank asked. And Roger replied: “Magdalen’s marriage with Guy Seymour. You knew that, of course.”