“Try to believe the best, then, until you know the worst;” and Roger laid his arm across Magdalen’s shoulders and drew her nearer to him, as he continued; “I have thought a great deal about that woman who left you in my care. I believe she was crazy, made so by some great sorrow,—your father’s death, perhaps,—for she was dressed in black; and, if so, she was not responsible for what she did, and you need not question her motives. She had a young, innocent face, and bright, handsome eyes like yours, Magda.” Every time he spoke that name, Magdalen felt a strange thrill creep through her veins, and she grew very quiet while Roger talked to her of her mother, and the time when he found himself with a helpless child upon his hands. “I adopted you then as my own,—my little baby,” he said. “You had nothing to do with it; the bargain was of my making, and you cannot break it. I have never given up my guardianship, never mean to give it up until some one claims you who has a better right than I to my little girl. And this I am saying in answer to your proposition of going away from Millbank, because you have no right here,—no claim on me. I am sorry that you should feel so,—you _have_ a claim on me,—I cannot let you go,—Millbank would be very lonely without you, Magda.” He paused a moment, and, looking off upon the hills across the river, seemed to be thinking intently. But it was not of the interpretation which many young girls of eighteen might put upon his words and manner. Nothing could be further from his mind than making love to Magdalen. He really felt as if he stood to her in the relation of a father, and that she had the same claim upon him which a child has upon a parent. Her proposition to leave Millbank disturbed him, and led him to think that perhaps _he_ was in some way at fault. He had not been very attentive to her;—he had been so much absorbed in his business as to forget that any attentions were due from him as master of the house. He had left all these things to Frank, who knew so much better how to entertain young ladies than he did; but he meant to do better; and his eyes came back at last from the hills across the river, and rested very kindly on her, as he said: