Magdalen was sobbing now, with her face buried in her hands, and Roger could see the great tears dropping from between her fingers. He knew she was crying for the mother she had never known, and that shame, quite as much as filial affection, was the cause of her distress, and he pitied her so much, knowing just how she felt; for there had been a time when he, too, was tormented with doubts concerning his own mother, the golden-haired Jessie, who was now cherished in his memory as the purest of women. He was very sorry for Magdalen, and very uncertain as to what, under the circumstances, it was proper for him to do. The world said she was a young lady, and if Roger had seen as much of her during the last four weeks as Frank had seen, he might have thought so too. But so absorbed had he been in his business, and so much of his time had been taken up with looking over accounts and receipts, and listening to what his agents had done, that he had given no very special attention to Magdalen, further than that perfect courtesy and politeness which he would award to any lady. He knew that she was very bright and pretty and sprightly, and that the tripping of her footsteps and the rustle of her white dress, and the sound of her clear, rich voice, breaking out in merry peals of laughter, or singing in the twilight, made Millbank very pleasant; but he thought of her still as a child, _his_ little child, whom he had held in his lap in the dusty car and hushed to sleep in his arms. She was only eighteen, he was thirty-two; and with that difference between them, he might surely soothe and comfort her as if she really were his daughter. Moving so near to her that her muslin dress swept across his feet, he laid his hand very gently upon her hair, and Magdalen, when she felt the pitying, caressing touch of that great broad, warm hand, which seemed in some way to encircle and shield her from all care or sorrow, bowed her head upon her lap, and cried more bitterly than before,—cried now with a feeling of utter desolation, as she began dimly to realize what it would be to go away from Millbank and its master. “Poor Magda,” he said, and his voice had in it all a father’s tenderness, “I am sorry to see you so much distressed. I can guess in part at the cause of your tears. You are crying for your mother, just as I have cried for mine many and many a time.” “No, not as you have cried for yours,” Magdalen said, lifting up her head and flashing her brilliant eyes upon him. “Hester has told me about _your_ mother. You believe her pure and good, while mine—oh, Mr. Irving, I don’t know what I believe of mine.”