Roger was in Dresden, and very well; but his letter did not relate so much to himself and his journeyings as to matters at home. Frank, who had visited Millbank in April, had written to Roger a not very satisfactory account of Hester’s management of Magdalen. “The girl is growing up a perfect Hottentot, with no more manners or style than Dame Floyd herself; and it seems a pity, when she is so bright and capable and handsome, and might with proper training make a splendid woman. But what can you expect of her, brought up by that superannuated Hester, who keeps her in the most outlandish clothes I ever saw, and lets her go barefoot half the time, till her feet are spreading so, that after a little they will be as flat and broad as a mackerel. Besides that, I saw her trying to milk, which you know will spoil her hands sooner than anything else in creation. My advice is that you send her to school, say here to New Haven, if you like. Mrs. Dana’s is a splendid school for young ladies. I would write at once to Mrs. Floyd if I were you. And, Roger, for thunder’s sake, tell her to let Mrs. Johnson or her daughter see to Maggie’s wardrobe. She would be the laughing-stock of the town if she were to come here rigged out _à la Floyd_.” This and much more Frank had written to Roger, who, in a milder form, wrote it back to Hester, telling her that Magdalen must go away, and suggesting New Haven as a proper place where to send her. Hester was a very little indignant when she read this letter, which, without directly charging her with neglect, still implied that in some things concerning Magdalen she had been remiss, and to Bessie, the housemaid, she was freeing her mind pretty thoroughly when Magdalen came in and began to question her eagerly with regard to Roger, and to ask if the letter was for her. “No,” Hester replied, “but it’s about you. I’m too old-fashioned to fetch you up any longer, and you’ve got to be sent away. The district school ain’t good enough, and you are to go to New Haven and learn manners, and not go barefoot, nor milk, and put your feet and hands out of shape. Haven’t I told you forty times, Magdalen Lennox, to put on your shoes?” “Yes, fifty,” Magdalen replied, in that peculiar winning way which she had of conciliating Hester when in one of her querulous moods. “What is it about my hands and feet, let me see?” And coming close to Hester, she laid one hand soothingly on the old woman’s shoulder, and with the other took Roger’s letter, which she read through from beginning to end; then, with a passionate exclamation, she threw it from her, saying: “It is Frank who put Mr. Roger up to this. I won’t go away from Millbank to horrid old New Haven, where the girls sit, and walk, and act just so, with their elbows in and their toes out. I hate New Haven, I hate Frank, I hate everybody but you.”