The night set in with a driving rain, and the wind moaned dismally as it swept past the house where the dead rested so quietly, and where the living were so busy and excited. At half-past eight the carriage came round, and Aleck in his waterproof coat held the umbrella over Hester’s head as she walked to the carriage, with one shawl wrapped around her and another on her arm. Why she took that second shawl she did not then know, but afterward, in recounting the particulars of that night’s adventures, she said it was just a special Providence and nothing else which put it into her head to take an extra shawl, and that a big warm one. Half an hour passed, and then above the storm Mrs. Walter Scott heard the whistle which announced the arrival of the train. Then twenty minutes went by, and Frank, who was watching by the window, screamed out: “They are coming, mother. I see the lights of the carriage.” If it had not been raining, Mrs. Walter Scott would have gone to the door, but the damp air was sure to take the curl from her hair, and Mrs. Walter Scott thought a great deal of the heavy ringlets which fell about her face by day and were tightly rolled in papers at night. So she only went as far as the parlor door, where she stood holding together the scarf she had thrown around her shoulders. There seemed to be some delay at the carriage, and the voices speaking together there were low and excited. “No, Hester; she is mine. She shall go in the front way,” Roger was heard to say; and a moment after Hester Floyd came hurriedly into the hall, holding something under her shawl which looked to Mrs. Walter Scott like a package or roll of cloth. Following Hester was Frank, who, having no curls to spoil, had rushed out in the rain to meet his little uncle, of whom he had always been so fond. “Oh, mother, mother!” he exclaimed. “What do you think Roger has brought home? Something which he found in the cars where a wicked woman left it. Oh, ain’t it so funny,—Roger bringing a baby?” and having thus thrown the bomb-shell at his mother’s feet, Frank darted after Hester, and poor Roger was left alone to make his explanations to his dreaded sister-in-law. CHAPTER II. ROGER’S STORY. Hester’s advent into the kitchen was followed by a great commotion, and Ruey forgot to pour any water upon the tea designed for Roger, but set the pot upon the hot stove, where it soon began to melt with the heat. But neither Hester nor Ruey heeded it, so absorbed were they in the little bundle which the former had laid upon the table, and which showed unmistakable signs of life and vigorous babyhood by kicking at the shawl which enveloped it, and thrusting out two little fat, dimpled fists, which beat the air as the child began to scream lustily and try to free itself from its wrappings. “The Lord have mercy on us! what have you got?” Ruey exclaimed, while Hester, with a pale face and compressed lip, replied: