Roger had some vague idea of a nurse with a frilled cap, and a nursery with toys scattered over the floor, and a crib with lace curtains over it, and a baby-head making a dent in the pillow, and a baby voice cooing him a welcome when he came in, and a baby-cart, sent from New York, and a fancy blanket with it. Indeed, this pleasant picture of something he had seen in St. Louis, in one of the handsome houses where he occasionally visited, had more than once presented itself to his mind as forming a part of the future, but he would not for the world have let Mrs. Walter Scott into that sanctuary. That cold, proud-faced woman confronting him so calmly had nothing in common with his ideals, and so he merely replied: “She can be taken care of without much trouble. Hester is not too old. She made me a capital nurse.” It was of no use to reason with him, and Mrs. Walter Scott did not try. She merely said: “It was a very foolish thing to do, and no one but you would have done it. You will think better of it after a little, and get the child off your hands. You were greatly shocked, of course, at the dreadful news?” It was the very first allusion anybody had made to the cause of Roger’s being there. The baby had absorbed every one’s attention, and the dead man upstairs had been for a time forgotten by all save Roger. He had through all been conscious of a heavy load of pain, a feeling of loss; and as he drove up to the house he had looked sadly toward the windows of the room where he had oftenest seen his father. He did not know that he was there now; he did not know where he was; and when Mrs. Walter Scott referred to him so abruptly, he answered with a quivering lip: “Where is father? Did they lay him in his own room?” “Yes, you’ll find him looking very natural,—almost as if he were alive; but I would not see him to-night. You are too tired. You must be hungry, too. You have had no supper. What can Hester be doing?”