“At first I don’t think she did. She was a young girlish thing; but, after you came, all that passed, and she just lived for you till that unlucky trip to Saratoga, when she was never like herself again.”
“You were with her, Hester. Did you see him?”
“I was there only a few days, and you was took sick. The air or something didn’t agree with you, and I fetched you home. Your father was more anxious for me to do that than she was. No, I didn’t see him to know him. Your mother drew a crowd around her and he might have been in it, but I never seen him.
There was a call for Roger, and, hiding his mother’s letter in a private drawer of the writing-desk, he went out to meet the gentlemen who were to take charge of his father’s funeral.
CHAPTER V.
THE FUNERAL.
There was to be quite a display, for the ‘Squire had lived in Belvidere for forty years. He was the wealthiest man in the place,—the one who gave the most to every benevolent object and approved of every public improvement. He had bought the organ and bell for the church in the little village; he had built the parsonage at his own expense, and half of the new town-house. He owned the large manufactory on the river, and the shoe-shop on the hill; and the workmen, who had ever found him a kind, considerate master, were going to follow him to the grave together with the other citizens of the town. The weather, however, was unpropitious, for the rain kept steadily falling, and by noon was driving in sheets across the river and down the winding valley. Mrs. Walter Scott’s hair, though kept in papers until the early dinner, at which some of the village magnates were present, came out of curl, and she was compelled to loop it back from her face, which style added to rather than detracted from her beauty. But she did not think so, and she was not feeling very amiable when she went down to dinner and met young Mr. Schofield, the old lawyer’s son, who had stepped into his father’s business and had been frequently to Millbank. Marriage was not a thing which Mrs. Walter Scott contemplated. She liked her freedom too well, but she always liked to make a good impression,—to look her very best,—to be admired by gentlemen, if they were gentlemen whose admiration was worth the having. And young Schofield was worth her while to cultivate, and in spite of her straightened hair he thought her very handsome, and stylish, and grand, and made himself very agreeable at the table and in the parlor after the dinner was over. He knew more of the Squire’s affairs than any one in Belvidere. He was at Millbank only the day before the Squire died, and had an appointment to come again on the very evening of his death.
“He was going to change his will; add a codicil or something,” he said, and Mrs. Walter Scott looked up uneasily as she replied,—
“He left a will, then? Do you know anything of it?”
“No, madam. And if I did, I could not honorably reveal my knowledge,” the lawyer answered, a little stiffly; while Mrs. Walter Scott, indignant at herself for her want of discretion, bit her lip and tapped her foot impatiently upon the carpet.