And the little Frenchwoman shrugged her shoulders, and ran to the window to look out, and came back with a swift gliding motion to take Katie’s hand out of her work and kiss it. Katie was surprised, startled, moved. She did not half understand it, and she blushed, though the lips which touched her hand were only those of a girl; but almost before she could speak, Desirée had sprung up again, and stood before her with a smile, winking her pretty long eyelashes to clear them of those wayward April tears. She was very pretty, very young, with her little foreign graces. Katie did not understand the rapid little girl, who darted from one thought to another, so quickly, yet with such evident truthfulness--but her heart was touched and surprised. Joanna came in immediately, to put an end to any further confidences. Joanna, loudly indignant at Patricia’s selfishness, and making most audible and uncompromising comparisons between Melmar and the manse, which Desirée skillfully diverted, soothed, and gradually reduced to silence, to Katie’s much amazement. On the whole, it was a very pleasant little tea-party to everybody concerned; but Katie Logan, when she stood at the door in the clear frosty moonlight, looking after her young guests, driving away in the double gig which had been sent for them, still doubted and wondered about Desirée, though with a kindly instead of an unfavorable sentiment. What could the capricious little foreigner mean, for instance, by such close questions about Norlaw? CHAPTER XLIII. At Norlaw every thing was very quiet, very still, in this early winter. The “beasts” were thriving, the dairy was prosperous, the Mistress’s surplus fund--spite of the fifty pounds which had been given out of it to Cosmo--grew at the bank. Willie Noble, the factotum, lived in his cosy cottage at a little distance, and throve--but no one knew very well how the Mistress and Marget lived by themselves in that deserted house. No one could have told any external difference in the house, save for its quietness. It was cheerful to look upon in the ruddy winter sunshine, when the glimmer of the fire shone in the windows of the dining-parlor, and through the open door of Marget’s kitchen; and not even the close pressure of the widow’s cap could bring decay or melancholy to the living looks of the Mistress, who still was not old, and had much to do yet in the world where her three boys were wandering. But it was impossible to deny that both Mistress and servant had a little dread of the long evenings. They preferred getting up hours before daylight, when, though it was dark, it was morning, and the labors of the day could be begun--they took no pleasure in the night.