Mrs. Walter Scott was in a very kind mood now, and volunteered to go herself to the kitchen to see why Roger’s supper was not forthcoming. But in this she was forestalled by Ruey, who came to say that supper was waiting in the dining-room, whither Roger went, followed by his sister-in-law, who poured his tea and spread him slices of bread and butter, with plenty of raspberry jam. And Roger relished the bread and jam with a boy’s keen appetite, and thought it was nicer to be at Millbank than in the poor clergyman’s box of a house at St. Louis, and then, with a great sigh, thought of the white-haired old man, who used to welcome him home and pat him so kindly on his head and call him “Roger-boy.” The white-haired man was gone forever now, and with a growing sense of loneliness and loss, Roger finished his supper and went to the kitchen, where Baby lay sleeping upon the settee which Hester had drawn to the fire, while Frank sat on a little stool, keeping watch over her. He had indorsed the Baby from the first, and when Hester gruffly bade him “keep out from under foot,” he had meekly brought up the stool and seated himself demurely between the settee and the oven door, where he was entirely out of the way. Hester still looked very much disturbed and aggrieved, and when she met Roger on his way to the kitchen, she passed him without a word; but the Hester Floyd who, after a time, went back to the kitchen, was in a very different mood from the one who had met Roger a short time before. This change had been wrought by a few words spoken to her by Mrs. Walter Scott, who sat over the fire in the dining-room when Hester entered it, and who began to talk of the baby which “that foolish boy had brought home.” “I should suppose he would have known better; but then, Mrs. Floyd, you must be aware of the fact that in some things Roger is rather weak and a little like his mother, who proved pretty effectually how vacillating she was, and how easily influenced.” Hester’s straight, square back grew a trifle squarer and straighter, and Baby’s cause began to gain ground, for Hester deemed it a religious duty to oppose whatever Mrs. Walter Scott approved. So if the lady was for sending the Baby away from Millbank, she was for keeping it there. Still she made no comments, but busied herself with putting away the sugar and cream and pot of jam, into which Roger had made such inroads. Seeing her auditor was not disposed to talk, Mrs. Walter Scott continued: “You have more influence with Roger than any one else, and I trust you will use that influence in the right direction; for supposing everything were so arranged that he could keep the child at Millbank, the trouble would fall on you, and it is too much to ask of a woman of your age.” Hester was not sensitive on the point of age, but to have Mrs. Walter Scott speak of her as if she were in her dotage was more than she could bear, and she answered tartly,—