would, should he ever come to what he had. Roger was glad this was only a dream,—glad to awake in his own pleasant chamber and hear the robins sing in the maple-tree outside, and see from his window the scarlet tints with which the autumnal frosts were beginning to touch the maples. He was strongly attached to his beautiful home, and to lose it now would be a bitter trial. But he had no expectation of losing it. It belonged to him without a question, and all through the autumn months he went on beautifying and improving it, and studying constantly some new surprise which would add to the happiness of those he had gathered around him, and whose comfort he held far above his own. Wholly unselfish, and liberal almost to a fault, he spent his money freely, not only for those of his own household, but for the poor, who had known and loved him when a boy, and who now idolized and honored him as a man, and blessed the day which had brought him back to their midst,—the kind and considerate employer of many of them,—the friend of the destitute and needy,—the cultivated gentleman in society, and the courteous master of Millbank. CHAPTER XVII. LOVE-MAKING AT MILLBANK. The holidays were over. They had been spent in New York, where, with Mrs. Walter Scott as her _chaperone_, Magdalen had passed a few weeks, and seen what was meant by fashionable society. But she did not like it, and was glad to return to Millbank. Roger had spent only a few days with her in New York, but Frank had been her constant attendant, and not a little proud of the beautiful girl who attracted so much attention. While there Magdalen had more than once heard mention made of Alice Grey, who had returned to America and was spending a few weeks in New York, where she would have been a belle but for her poor health, which prevented her from mingling much in fashionable society. Frank had called on her several times, and occasionally she heard him rallied upon his penchant for Miss Grey by some one of his friends, who knew them both. Frank would have denied the charge openly had Magdalen’s manner towards him been different from what it was. She called him her brother, and by always treating him as such, made anything like love-making on his part almost impossible; and so Frank thought to rouse her jealousy by allowing her to believe that there was something serious between himself and Alice Grey. But in this he was mistaken. The charm he had once possessed for Magdalen, when, as a child, she enshrined him her hero and lived upon his smiles, was broken, and though she liked him greatly and showed that she did so, she knew that any stronger feeling towards him was utterly impossible, and was delighted at the prospect of his transferring to another some of the attentions which were becoming distasteful to her, from the fact of their being so very marked and lover-like.