“Oh, just Norlaw; he was aince a wooer himsel’, poor haverel,” said Aunt Jean; “he gaed roaming about a’ the world, seeking after her, leaving his wife and his bonny bairns at hame; but fhat good did he?--just nought ava, Deseery, except waste his ain time, and lose his siller, and gie his wife a sair heart. She’s made muckle mischief in her day, this Mary of Melmar. They say she was very bonnie, though I never saw her mysel’; and fhat for, think you, should the present lad, that kens nought about her, take up his staff and gang traveling the world to seek for her? Oh, fie, nae!--he has mair duty to his ain house and bairns, than to a strange woman that he kens not where to seek, and that would make him a beggar if he found her; I canna see she deserves ony such thing at his hand.” At first Desirée did not answer a word; her cheek was burning hot with excitement, her face shadowed with an angry cloud, her little hand clenched involuntarily, her brow knitted. She was thinking of something private to herself, which roused a passion of resentment within the breast of the girl. At last she started up and came close to Aunt Jean. “But if you knew that she was living, and where she was?” cried Desirée, “what would you do?” “Me! Oh, my bairn!” cried Aunt Jean, in sudden dismay. “Me! what have I to do with their concerns?--me! it’s nane of my business. The Lord keep that and a’ evil out of a poor auld woman’s knowledge. I havena eaten his bread--I never would be beholden that far to any mortal--but I’ve sitten under his roof tree for mony a year. Me!--if I heard a word of such awfu’ news, I would gang furth of this door this moment, that I mightna be a traitor in the man’s very dwelling;--eh, the Lord help me, the thought’s dreadful! for I behoved to let her ken!” “And what if he knew?” asked Desirée, in a sharp whisper, gazing into Aunt Jean’s eyes with a look that pierced like an arrow. The old woman’s look fell, but it was not to escape this gaze of inquiry. “The Lord help him!” said Aunt Jean, pitifully. “I can but hope he would do right, Deseery; but human nature’s frail; I canna tell.” This reply softened for the moment the vehement, angry look of the little Frenchwoman. She came again to kneel before the fire, and was silent, thinking her own thoughts; then another and a new fancy seemed to rise like a mist over her face. She looked up dismayed to Aunt Jean, with an unexplained and terrified question, which the old woman could not interpret. Then she tried to command herself with an evident effort--but it was useless. She sprang up, and came close, with a shivering chill upon her, to put her lips to Aunt Jean’s ear. “Do they all know of this story?” she asked, in the low, sharp voice, strangely intent and passionate, which even deafness itself could not refuse to hear; and Desirée fixed her gaze upon the old woman’s eyes, holding her fast with an eager scrutiny, as though she trembled to be put off with any thing less than the truth.