“She was a bright, playful darling,” they said, as they left her and went back to the parlors where the funeral services were being read over the cold, stiff form of Millbank’s late proprietor. Roger’s face was very pale, and his eyes were fixed upon the carpet, where he saw continually one of two pictures—his mother standing on the “Sea Gull’s” deck, or sitting before the fire; as Hester had said she sat, with her eyes always upon one point, the cheerful blaze curling up the chimney’s mouth. “I’ll find that man sometime. I’ll make him tell why he left that doubt to torture me,” he was thinking, just as the closing hymn was sung and the services were ended. Mrs. Walter Scott did not think it advisable to go to the grave, and so Hester and Aleck went in the carriage with Roger and Frank, the only relatives in all the long procession which wound down the avenue and through the lower part of the town to where the tall Irving monument showed plainly in the Belvidere cemetery. The Squire’s first wife was there in the yard; her name was on the marble,—“Adeline, beloved wife of William H. Irving;” and Walter Scott’s name was there, too, though he was sleeping in Greenwood; but Jessie’s name had not been added to the list, and Roger noticed it, and wondered he had never been struck by the omission as he was now, and to himself he said: “I can’t bring you up from your ocean bed, dear mother, and put you here where you belong, but I can do you justice otherwise, and I will.” Slowly the long procession made the circuit of the cemetery and passed out into the street, where, with the dead behind them, the horses were put to greater speed, and those of the late Squire Irving drew up ere long before the door of Millbank. The rain was over and the April sun was breaking through the clouds, while patches of clear blue sky were spreading over the heavens. It bade fair to be a fine warm afternoon, and the windows and doors of Millbank were open to let out the atmosphere of death and to let in the cheerful sunshine. Friendly hands had been busy to make the house attractive to the mourners when they returned from the grave. There were bright flowers in the vases on the mantel and tables, the furniture was put back in its place, the drapery removed from the mirrors, and the wind blew softly through the lace curtains into the handsome rooms. And Mrs. Walter Scott, wrapped in her scarlet shawl, knew she looked a very queen as she trailed her long skirts slowly over the carpets, and thought with a feeling of intense satisfaction how pleasant it was at Millbank now, and how doubly pleasant it would be later in the season when her changes and improvements were completed. She should not fill the house with company that summer, she thought. It would not look well so soon after the Squire’s death, but she would have Mrs. Chesterfield there with her sister Grace, and possibly Captain Stanhope, Grace’s betrothed. That