“No, no, thank ye,” said the Mistress, “I’ve been walking, I’ll no’ come to the fire; it’s cold, but it’s a fine day outbye--I just thought I would take a walk up by Whittock’s Gate.” “Were you at Mrs. Blackadder’s?” asked Katie. “No,” said the Mistress, with a slightly confused expression. “I was no place, but just taking a walk. What for should I no’ walk for pleasure as well as my neighbors? but indeed, to tell the truth, I had a very foolish reason, Katie,” she added, after a little interval. “I’ve never had rest in my mind after what you said of the French lassie at Melmar. I did ken of a person that was lost and married long ago, and might just as well be in France as in ony other place. She was no friend of mine, but I kent of her, and I’ve seen her picture and heard what like she was, so, as I could not help but turn it over in my mind, I just took the gate up there, a wise errand, to see if I could get a look of this bairn. I meant to go through the Melmar footpath, though that house and them that belong to it are little pleasure to me; but as guid fortune was, I met them in the road.” “Joanna and the governess?” said Katie. “And mair than them,” answered the Mistress. “A lad that I would take to be the son that’s been so long away. An antic with a muckle cloak, and a black beard, and a’ the looks of a French fiddler; but Joanna called him by his name, so he bid to be her brother; and either he’s deluding the other bit lassie, or she’s ensnaring him.” Katie smiled, so faintly and unlike herself, that it was not difficult to perceive how little her heart was open to amusement. The Mistress, however, who apprehended every thing after her own fashion, took even this faint expression of mirth a little amiss. “You needna laugh--there’s little laughing matter in it,” said the Mistress. “If a bairn of mine were to be led away after ony such fashion, do ye think _I_ could find in my heart to smile? Na, they’re nae friends of mine, the present family of Melmar; but I canna see a son of a decent house maybe beguiled by an artfu’ foreign woman, however great an antic he may be himself, and take ony pleasure in it. It’s aye sure to be a grief to them he belongs to, and maybe a destruction to the lad a’ his life.” “But Desirée is only sixteen, and Oswald Huntley, if it was Oswald--is a very great deal older--he should be able to take care of himself,” said Katie, repeating the offense. “You saw her, then? Do you think she was like the lady you knew?”