Then, when the ladies suggested that he would undoubtedly have a great deal of property left to him, and wondered who his guardian would be, she said “she did not know. Lawyer Schofield, perhaps, as he had done the most of Squire Irving’s business.” “But Lawyer Schofield is dead. He died three weeks ago,” the ladies said; and Mrs. Walter Scott’s cheek for a moment turned pale as she expressed her surprise at the news, and wondered she had not heard of it. Then the conversation drifted back to Roger, who was expected the next night, and for whom the funeral was delayed. “I always liked Roger,” Mrs. Johnson said; “and I must say I loved his mother, in spite of her faults. She was a lovely creature, and it seems a thousand pities that she should have married so old a man as Squire Irving when she loved another so much.” Mrs. Walter Scott said it was a pity,—said she always disapproved of unequal matches,—said she had not the honor of the lady’s acquaintance, and then bowed her visitors out with her loftiest air, and went back to the parlor, and wondered what people would say when they knew what she did. She would be very kind to Roger, she thought. Her standing in Belvidere depended upon that, and he should have a home at Millbank until he was of age, when, with the legacy left to him, he could do very well for himself. She wished the servants did not think quite so much of him as they did, especially Aleck and Hester Floyd, who talked of nothing except that “Master Roger was coming to-morrow.” Her mourning was coming, too; and when the next day it came, she arrayed herself in the heavy bombazine, with the white crape band at the throat and wrists, which relieved the sombreness of her attire. She was dressing for Roger, she said, thinking it better to evince some interest in an event which was occupying so much of the servants’ thoughts. The day was a damp, chilly one in mid-April, and so a fire was kindled in Roger’s room, and flowers were put there, and the easy chair from the hall library; and Hester went in and out and arranged and re-arranged the furniture, and then flitted to the kitchen, where the pies and puddings which Roger loved were baking, and where Jeruah, or “Ruey,” as she was called was beating the eggs for Roger’s favorite cake. He would be there about nine o’clock, she knew, for she had received a telegram from Albany, saying, “Shall be home at nine. Meet me at the depot without fail.” In a great flurry Hester read the dispatch, wondering why she was to meet him without fail, and finally deciding that the affectionate boy could not wait till he reached home before pouring out his tears and grief on her motherly bosom. “Poor child! I presume he’ll cry fit to bust when he sees me,” she said to Mrs. Walter Scott, who looked with a kind of scorn upon the preparations for the supposed heir of Millbank.