“Then you were named for Mrs. Irving?” and the stranger involuntarily drew a step nearer to the little girl, on whose hair his hand rested for a moment. “Do they talk much of her at Millbank?” “No; nobody but Mr. Roger, when he is at home. Her picture is in the library, and I think it is so lovely, with the pearls on her neck and arms, and the flowers in her hair. She must have been beautiful.” “Yes, very beautiful,” fell mechanically from the stranger’s lips; and Magdalen asked, in some surprise: “Did you know her, sir?” “I judge from your description,” was the reply; and then he asked “if the flowers were for Mrs. Irving.” “The large bouquet is. I always make a difference, because I think Mr. Roger loved her best,” Magdalen said. Just then there came across the fields the sound of the village clock striking the hour of five, and Magdalen started, exclaiming, “I must go now; Hester will be looking for me.” The stranger saw her anxious glance at her stockings and shoes, and thoughtfully turned his back while she gathered them up and thrust them into her basket. “You’d better put them on,” he said, when he saw the disposition she had made of them. “The gravel stones will hurt your feet, and there may be thistles, too.” He seemed very kind indeed, and walked to another enclosure, while Magdalen put on her stockings and shoes and then arose to go. She thought he would accompany her as far as the highway, sure, and began to feel a little elated at the prospect of being seen in company with so fine a gentleman by old Bettie, the gate-keeper, and her granddaughter Lottie. But he was in no hurry to leave the spot. “This is a very pretty cemetery; I believe I will walk about a little,” he said, as he saw that the girl seemed to be waiting for him. Magdalen knew this was intended as a dismissal, and walked rapidly away. Pausing at the stile over which she passed into the street, she looked back and saw the stranger,—not walking about the grounds, but standing by the monument and apparently leaning his head upon it. Had she passed that place an hour later, she would have missed from its cup of water the largest bouquet, the one she had brought for Mrs. Irving, and would have missed, too, the half-open rose which hung very near Jessie’s name. But she would have charged the theft to the children by the gate, who sometimes did rob the grave of flowers, and not to the splendid-looking man with the big gold chain, who had spoken so kindly to her, and of whom her head was full as she went back to Millbank, where she was met by Hester with an open letter in her hand, bearing a foreign post-mark. CHAPTER IX. A STIR AT MILLBANK. The letter was from Roger, and in her eagerness to hear from him, Magdalen forgot the stranger who had asked so many questions.