Frank did not return till the next night. There was a horserace in Springfield and he had Firefly there and put him on the course and won a bet and made for himself quite a reputation as a horse-jockey; and he paid Holt’s bills at the Massasoit House, and sent bottles of champagne to sundry other “good fellows” who had praised his skill in driving and praised his horse and flattered him generally. Then he promised to look at another horse which somebody recommended as unsurpassed in the saddle, and took several shares in a new speculation which was sure to go if “the rich Mr. Irving patronized it,” and which if it went was sure to pay double. Judge Burleigh, of Boston, who was stopping at the Massasoit, had sought him out and introduced his daughter Bell, a handsome, haughty girl, who had made fun of his light mustache and boyish face before she knew who he was, and then been very gracious to him after. Bell Burleigh was poor and fashionable and extravagant, and on the lookout for a husband. Frank Irving was rich, and master of the finest residence in the county, and worth cultivating, and so she expended upon him every art known to a thorough woman of the world, and walked with him through the halls and sat with him in the parlor in the evening, and went out in the morning to see him drive Firefly round the course, and had her father ask him to their table at dinner time, and flattered and courted him until he began to wonder why other people beside Bell Burleigh had not discovered what an entertaining and agreeable man he was! But through it all he never for a moment wavered in his allegiance to Magdalen. Bell’s influence could not make him do that; but it inflated his pride and made him less able to bear the humiliation to which Magdalen was about to subject him. After her first interview with Magdalen, Mrs. Walter Scott did not see her again until her son returned, though she sent twice to know how she was feeling and if she would have anything. To these inquiries Magdalen had answered that she was doing very well and did not want anything more than she already had, and this was all that had passed between the two ladies when Frank came home from Springfield. He heard from Sarah of the change in Magdalen; but heard, too, that she could not see him that night, as she had been sitting up some little time and was very tired. The next day it was the same, and the next. She was too weak to talk, and would rather Mr. Irving should wait before she saw him. And so Frank waited and chafed and fretted and lost his temper with his mother, who maintained through all the utmost reserve with regard to Magdalen, feeling intuitively that matters were adjusting themselves to her satisfaction. She guessed what the delay portended, and on the strength of it went once or twice to the sick-room, and was a little more gracious than at first. But Magdalen was very reserved toward her now, barely answering her questions, and seeming relieved when she went away.