“Oh, no, no, not any,” she said, with a deep blush. She was startled and disturbed out of all her maiden fancies--was it a nervous, jealous irritation, to find that she had friends more than he knew. It was very strange--and when Joanna rejoined them shortly, Oswald made an excuse for himself, and left them. The girls followed him slowly, after a time, to the house; Desirée could scarcely answer Joanna’s questions, or appear interested in her pupil’s interests. What was the reason? She bewildered her poor little head asking this question; but no answer came. CHAPTER XLIX. It was a kind of twilight in Aunt Jean’s room, though it was still daylight out of doors; the sun, as it drew to the west, threw a ruddy glory upon this side of the house of Melmar, and coming in at Aunt Jean’s window, had thrown its full force upon the fire-place half an hour ago. It was the old lady’s belief that the sun put out the fire, so she had drawn down her blind, and the warm, domestic glimmer of the firelight played upon the high bed, with those heavy, dull, moreen curtains, which defied all brightness--upon the brighter toilet-glass on the table, and upon the old lofty chest of drawers, polished and black like ebony, which stood at the further side of the room. Aunt Jean herself sat in a high-backed arm-chair by the fire, where she loved to sit--and Desirée and Joanna, kneeling on the rug before her, were turning out the contents of a great basket, full of such scraps as Aunt Jean loved to accumulate, and girls have pleasure in turning over; there were bits of silk, bits of splendid old ribbon, long enough for “bows,” in some cases, but in some only fit for pin-cushions and needle-books of unbelievable splendor, bits of lace, bits of old-fashioned embroidery, bits of almost every costly material belonging to a lady’s wardrobe. It was a pretty scene; the basket on the rug, with its many-colored stores, the pretty little figure of Desirée, with the fire-light shining in her hair, the less graceful form of Joanna, which still was youthful, and honest, and eager, as she knelt opposite the fire, which flushed her face and reddened her hair at its will; and calmly seated in her elbow-chair, overseeing all, Aunt Jean, with her white neckerchief pinned over her gown, and her white apron warm in the fire-light, and the broad black ribbon bound round her old-fashioned cap, and the vivacious sparkle of those black eyes, which were not “hard of hearing,” though their owner was. The pale daylight came in behind the old lady, faintly through the misty atmosphere and the closed blind--but the ruddier domestic light within went flickering and sparkling over the high-canopied bed, the old-fashioned furniture, and the group by the hearth. When Joanna went away, the picture was even improved perhaps, for Desirée still knelt half meditatively by the fire, turning over with one hand the things in the basket, listening to what the old lady said,