Hester knew there was a good deal of what she called “soft-soap” in all the lady said; but kind words go a great ways with everybody, and Hester insensibly relaxed her stiffness and went herself with Mrs. Walter Scott to her room and opened the shutters, and brought clean towels for the rack, and asked if her guest would have a lunch or wait till dinner was ready. “Oh, I’ll wait, of course. I do not mean to give you one bit of trouble,” was the suave reply, and Hester departed, wondering to herself at the change, and if “Mrs. Walter Scott hadn’t j’ined the church or something.” CHAPTER XI. ROGER’S LETTERS AND THE RESULT. While Mrs. Walter Scott was resting, Roger’s letters were brought in. There was one for Frank, which he carried to his own room, and one for Magdalen, who broke the seal at once and screamed with delight as Roger’s photograph met her view. He had had it taken for her in Dresden, and hoped it would afford her as much pleasure to receive it as hers had given him. He did not say that he thought her position stiff, and her dress too old for her, though he had thought it, and smiled at the prim, old-womanish figure, sitting so erect in the high-backed chair. But he would not willingly wound any one, much less the little girl who had picked berries in the hot sun to pay for the picture. So he thanked her for it, and enclosed his own, and gave his consent to the Charlestown arrangement, and asked again that some competent person should take charge of her wardrobe, which he wanted in every respect “to be like that of other young girls.” He underscored this line, and Hester, who read the letter after Magdalen, felt her blood tingle a little, and knew that her day for dressing Magdalen was over. As for Magdalen, she was too much engrossed in Roger’s picture to think much of the contents of the letter. “Oh, isn’t he splendid-looking; but I should be awfully afraid of him now,” she said, as she went in quest of Frank.