A very sadly different scene; no young hopes blossoming towards perfection—no young lives beginning—no joy—has called together this company, or makes this room bright; a dark house, shrouded still in its closed curtains and shutters, a wan light in the apartment, a breathless air of death throughout the place. Outside, the tawdry Frenchman, with a long crape hatband, knotted up in funeral bows, as is the custom in Scotland, walking up and down smoking his cigar, angry at finding himself excluded, yet tired of the brief decorum into which even he has been awed, and much disposed to amuse himself with any kitchenmaid whom he may chance to see as he peers about their quarters, keeping at the back of the house. But the maids are horrified and defiant, and the affair is rather dull, after all, for Monsieur Pierrot.

The company are all assembled in the drawing-room, as they have returned from the funeral. The minister, the doctor, a lawyer from Melrose, Cameron, and the three brothers Livingstone. Madame Roche, her black gown covered with crape, and every thing about her of the deepest sable, save her cap; the white ribbons of which are crape ribbons too, sits, with her handkerchief in her hand, in an easy chair. The Mistress is there, too, rather wondering and disapproving, giving her chief attention to DesirÉe, who sits behind her mother quietly crying, and supposing this solemn assembly is some necessary formality which must be gone through.

“Is it to read the will?” asks the minister, who suggests that her husband had better be present; but no, there is no will—for poor Marie had nothing and could leave nothing. When they have been all seated for a few minutes, Madame Roche herself rises from her chair. Though the tears are in her eyes, and grief in her face, she is still the beautiful old lady whom Cosmo Livingstone loved to watch from his window in St. Ouen. Time himself, the universal conqueror, can never take from Mary of Melmar that gift which surrounded her with love in her youth, and which has lighted all her troubled life like a fairy lamp. The sweet soft cheek where even wrinkles are lovely, the beautiful old eyes which even in their tears can not choose but smile, the footstep so light, yet so firm, which still might ring “like siller bells,” though its way is heavy. Every one was looking at her, and as they looked, every one acknowledged the unchanging fascination of this beautiful face.

“Gentlemen,” said Madame Roche with a little tremor in her voice, “I would speak to you all—I would do my justice before the world; you have heard what I was in my youth. Mary Huntley of Melmar, my father’s heiress. I was disobedient—I went away from him—I knew he disowned me, and knew no more than an infant that he relented in his heart when he died. I was poor all my life—my Marie, my dear child!” and here Madame Roche paused to sob aloud, and DesirÉe laid her head upon the knee of the Mistress and clutched at her dress in silent self-control; “it was then she married this man—married him to break her heart—yet still loved him to the last. Ah, my friends, I was thus a widow with my sick child in my husband’s town. My Jean was dead, and she was forsaken—and my DesirÉe was gone from me to serve strangers—it was then that one came to my house like an angel from heaven. Cosmo, my friend, do you blush that I should name your name?

“And what a tale he told me!” cried poor Madame Roche, whose tears now filled her eyes, and whose lips quivered so that she had to pause from moment to moment; “I, who thought me a lonely woman, whom no one cared for;—my father had thought upon me—my kinsman, Patrick Livingstone, had sought me to give me back my lands—my young hero was seeking me then; and his brother, yes, Huntley, his noble brother, was ready to renounce his right—and all for the widow and her children. I weep, ah, my friends, you weep!—was it not noble? was it not above praise? When I heard it I made a vow—I said in my heart I should repay this excellent Huntley. I had planned it in my mind—I said in my thoughts, my Marie, my blessed child, must have half of this great fortune. She is married, she can not make compensation—but the rest is for DesirÉe, and DesirÉe shall give it back to Huntley Livingstone.”

Every one of her auditors by this time gazed upon Madame Roche. DesirÉe, sitting behind her, lifted her face from the lap of the Mistress; she was perfectly pale, and her eyes were heavy with crying. She sat leaning forward, holding the Mistress’s gown with one hand, with sudden dismay and terror in her white face. Just opposite her Cameron sat, clenching his hand. What he was thinking no one could say—but as Madame Roche spoke of Marie he still clenched his hand. Then came the strangers, surprised and sympathetic, Patrick Livingstone among them. Then Huntley, much startled and wondering, and Cosmo, with a face which reflected DesirÉe’s, dismayed and full of anxiety, and the attitude of a man about to spring up to defy, or denounce, or contradict the speaker. The Mistress behind sat upright in her chair, with a face like a psalm of battle and triumph, her nostril dilating, her eyes shining. For the first time in her life, the Mistress’s heart warmed to Mary of Melmar. She alone wanted no explanation of this speech—she alone showed no surprise or alarm—it was but a just and fit acknowledgment—a glory due to the sons of Norlaw.

“But, alas,” cried Madame Roche; “God has looked upon it, and it has not been enough. He has broken my heart and made my way clear; pity me, my friends, my Marie is in heaven and her mother here! And now there is but one heir. My DesirÉe is my only child—there is none to share her inheritance. Huntley Livingstone, come to me! I have thought and I have dreamed of the time when I should give you my child—but, alas! did I think it should be only when Marie was in her grave? Huntley Livingstone! you gave up your right to me, and I restore it to you. I give you my child, and Melmar is for DesirÉe. There is no one to share it with you, my daughter and my son!”

Huntley had risen and approached to Madame Roche, though with reluctance, when she called him. Now she held his hand in one of hers, and stretched out the other for that of DesirÉe—while Huntley, confounded, confused, and amazed beyond expression, had not yet recovered himself sufficiently to speak. Before he could speak Cosmo had sprung to the side of DesirÉe, who stood holding back and meeting her mother’s appeal with a look of dumb defiance and exasperation, which might be very wrong, but was certainly very natural. Every one rose. But for the grief of the principal actors, and the painful embarrassment of all, the scene might almost have been ludicrous. Cosmo, who had grasped at DesirÉe’s hand, did not obtain it any more than her mother. The girl stood up, but kept her hold of the Mistress’s gown, as if for protection.

“No, no, no, no!” said DesirÉe, in a low, hurried, ashamed voice; “mother, no—no—no! I will not do it! Mamma, will you shame me? Oh, pity us! Is it thus we are to weep for Marie?”

“My child, it is justice,” cried Madame Roche, through her tears; “give him your hand—it is that Huntley may have his own.”

“But there is some strange mistake here,” said Huntley, whose brow burned with a painful flush; “Melmar was never mine, nor had I any real right to it. Years ago I have even forgotten that it once was possible. Be silent for a moment, Cosmo, I beg of you, and you, Mademoiselle DesirÉe, do not fear. Madame Roche, I thank you for your generous meaning, but it is an entire mistake in every way—let me explain it privately. Let us be alone first;—nay, nay, let me speak, then! I am my father’s heir, and our house is older than Melmar; and nothing in the world, were it the hand of a queen, could tempt me to call myself any thing but Livingstone of Norlaw!”

The Mistress had been standing up, like everybody else, an excited spectator. When Huntley said these words she sat down suddenly, with a glow and flush of triumph not to be described—the name of her husband and her son ringing in her ears like a burst of music; and then, for the first time, DesirÉe relinquished her hold, and held out her hand to Huntley, while Cosmo grasped his other hand and wrung it in both his with a violent pressure. The three did not think for that moment of Madame Roche, who had been looking in Huntley’s face all the time he spoke to her, and who, when he ended, dropped his hand silently and sank into her chair. She was leaning back now, with her white handkerchief over her face—and the hand that held it trembled. Poor Madame Roche! this was all her long thought of scheme had come to—she could only cover her face and forget the pang of failure in the bigger pang of grief—she did not say another word; she comprehended—for she was not slow of understanding—that Huntley’s little effusion of family pride was but a rapid and generous expedient to save him from a direct rejection of DesirÉe. And poor Madame Roche’s heart grew sick with the quick discouragement of grief. She closed her eyes, and heavier tears came from them than even those she had shed for Marie. She had tried her best to make them happy, she had failed; and now they for whose sake alone she had made all this exertion neglected and forgot her. It was too much for Madame Roche.

“Mamma, listen,” whispered DesirÉe, soothingly. “Ah, mamma, you might force mine—I should always obey you—but you can not force Huntley’s heart—he does not care for me; bah, that is nothing!—but there is one whom he cares for—one whom he has come home for—Katie, whom they all love! Mamma, you were right! he is noble, he is generous; but what is Melmar to Huntley? He has come back for Katie and his own home.”

“Katie?—some one else? My darling, does he love her?” said Madame Roche. “Then it is God who has undone all, DesirÉe, and I am content. Let him come to me, and I will bless him. I will bless you all, my children,” she said, raising herself up, and stretching her hands toward them. “Ah, friends, do you see them—so young and so like each other! and it was he who sought us, and not Huntley; and it is I who am wrong—and God is right!”

Saying which, Madame Roche kissed Huntley’s cheek, dismissing him so, and took Cosmo into her arms instead. Her sweet temper and facile mind forgot even her own failure. She put back Cosmo’s hair tenderly from his forehead and called him her hero. He was her son at least; and DesirÉe and Melmar, the two dreams of his fancy, between which, when he saw the girl first, he suspected no possible connection, came at once, a double gift, the one eagerly sought, the other totally unthought of, into the Benjamin’s portion of Cosmo Livingstone.