“She was always kind and attentive to him,” Hester said; “but she kept out of his way as much as possible, and I’ve seen her shiver and turn white about the mouth if he just laid his hand on her in a kind of lovin’ way, you know, as old men will have toward their young wives. When she was expectin’ you, it was a study to see her sittin’ for hours and hours in her own room, lookin’ straight into the fire, with her hands clinched in her lap, and her eyes so sad and cryin’ like—” “Didn’t mother want me born?” Roger asked with quivering lips; and Hester answered,— “At first I don’t think she did. She was a young girlish thing; but, after you came, all that passed, and she just lived for you till that unlucky trip to Saratoga, when she was never like herself again.” “You were with her, Hester. Did you see _him_?” “I was there only a few days, and you was took sick. The air or something didn’t agree with you, and I fetched you home. Your father was more anxious for me to do that than she was. No, I didn’t see him to know him. Your mother drew a crowd around her and he might have been in it, but I never seen him. There was a call for Roger, and, hiding his mother’s letter in a private drawer of the writing-desk, he went out to meet the gentlemen who were to take charge of his father’s funeral. CHAPTER V. THE FUNERAL. There was to be quite a display, for the ‘Squire had lived in Belvidere for forty years. He was the wealthiest man in the place,—the one who gave the most to every benevolent object and approved of every public improvement. He had bought the organ and bell for the church in the little village; he had built the parsonage at his own expense, and half of the new town-house. He owned the large manufactory on the river, and the shoe-shop on the hill; and the workmen, who had ever found him a kind, considerate master, were going to follow him to the grave together with the other citizens of the town. The weather, however, was unpropitious, for the rain kept steadily falling, and by noon was driving in sheets across the river and down the winding valley. Mrs. Walter Scott’s hair, though kept in papers until the early dinner, at which some of the village magnates were present, came out of curl, and she was compelled to loop it back from her face, which style added to rather than detracted from her beauty. But she did not think so, and she was not feeling very amiable when she went down to dinner and met young Mr. Schofield, the old lawyer’s son, who had stepped into his father’s business and had been frequently to Millbank. Marriage was not a thing which Mrs. Walter Scott contemplated. She liked her freedom too well, but she always liked to make a good impression,—to look her very best,—to be admired by gentlemen, if they were gentlemen whose admiration was worth the having. And young Schofield was worth her while