to cultivate, and in spite of her straightened hair he thought her very handsome, and stylish, and grand, and made himself very agreeable at the table and in the parlor after the dinner was over. He knew more of the Squire’s affairs than any one in Belvidere. He was at Millbank only the day before the Squire died, and had an appointment to come again on the very evening of his death. “He was going to change his will; add a codicil or something,” he said, and Mrs. Walter Scott looked up uneasily as she replied,— “He left a will, then? Do you know anything of it?” “No, madam. And if I did, I could not honorably reveal my knowledge,” the lawyer answered, a little stiffly; while Mrs. Walter Scott, indignant at herself for her want of discretion, bit her lip and tapped her foot impatiently upon the carpet. It was time now for the people to assemble, and as the bell, which the squire had given to the parish, sent forth its summons, the villagers came crowding up the avenue and soon filled the lower portion of the house, their damp, steaming garments making Mrs. Walter Scott very faint, and sending her often to her smelling-salts, which were her unfailing remedy for the sickening perfumes which she fancied were found only among the common people like those filling the rooms at Millbank,—the “factory bugs” who smelt of wool, and the “shop hands” who carried so strong an odor of leather wherever they went. Mrs. Walter Scott did not like shoemakers nor factory hands, and she sat very stiff and dignified, and looked at them contemptuously from behind her long veil as they crowded into the hall and drawing-room, and managed, some of them, to gain access to the kitchen where the baby was. Her story had flown like lightning through the town, and the people had discussed it, from Mrs. Johnson and her set down to Hester’s married niece, who kept the little public house by the toll-gate, and who had seen the child herself. “It was just like Roger Irving to bring it home,” the people all agreed, just as they agreed that it would be absurd for him to keep it. That he would not do so they were sure, and the fear that it might be sent away before they had a look at it brought many a woman to the funeral that rainy, disagreeable day. Baby was Ruey’s charge for that afternoon, and in a fresh white dress which Hester had brought from the chest, she sat in her candle-box, surrounded by as heterogeneous a mass of playthings as were ever conjured up to amuse a child. There was a silver-spoon, and a tin cup, and a tea-canister, and a feather duster, and Frank’s ball, and Roger’s tooth-brush, and some false hair which Hester used to wear as puffs and which amused the baby more than all the other articles combined. She seemed to have a fancy for tearing hair, and shook and pulled the faded wig in high glee, and won many a kiss and hug and compliment from the curious women who gathered round her.