And so it was owing partly to Frank’s thoughtfulness and Hester’s generosity that the farm-house, when renovated with paper and paint, and furnished with the pretty, tasteful furniture which Hester bought, looked as well and inviting as it did. The most pains had been taken with Roger’s room, the one his mother occupied when a girl. Hester had ascertained which it was from an inhabitant of Schodick, who had been Jessie’s friend, and slept with her many a time in the room under the roof, which looked off upon the pond and up the side of the steep hills. The prettiest carpet was put down there, and curtains were hung before the windows, and the bed made up high and clean with ruffled sheets and pillow-cases, mementos of Millbank, and Jessie’s picture was hung on the wall, the blue eyes seeming to look sadly round upon a spot they had known in happier days than those when the portrait was taken. There were flowers, too, in great profusion,—not costly, hot-house flowers, like those which decked the rooms at Millbank, but sweet, home-flowers, like those which grow around the doors and in the gardens of so many happy New England homes,—the fragrant pink and old-fashioned rose and honeysuckle and heliotrope, with verbenas and the sweet mignonette. And here Roger came one pleasant July afternoon, when a heavy thunder-storm had laid the dust, and cooled the air, and set every little bird to singing its blithest notes, and, alas! soured the rich, thick cream, which Hester had put away for the few luscious wild strawberries which, late as it was for them, Mattie had found in the meadow, by the fence, and picked for Mr. Roger. With the exception of this little drawback, Hester was perfectly happy, and her face was radiant when she met her boy at the door, and welcomed him to his new home, taking him first to his own room, because it looked the prettiest, and would give him the best impression. Roger had been in Schodick once or twice when a boy, but everything now was new and strange, while, struggle as he might against it, the contrast between the old home and the new affected him painfully at first, and it was weeks before he could settle down quietly, and give his time and attention to the firm of which he at once became a member. For days and days he found his chief solace in wandering over the hills where his mother once had been, and exploring the shadowy woods, and hunting out the rock under the overhanging pine, where she had crept away from sight, and prayed that she might die, when the great sorrow was in her heart, just as it was now in his. He found the spot at last, just under the shadow of one great rock and on the ledge of another, where the ground was carpeted thickly with the red pine of last year’s growth, and the green, tasselated boughs above his head seemed to whisper softly, and try to comfort him. Here poor Jessie had knelt, and felt that her heart was breaking. And here Roger sat, and felt that _his_ heart was broken.