Perhaps some delicate spirit whispered as much in the old lady’s ear. She came to him when her first excitement was over, with tender tears in her beautiful old eyes. “My child, you have found a fortune and a home for me,” said Madame Roche, “but it is to take them away from your brother. What will your mother say at home?” “She will say it is right and just, madame, and I have done my duty,” said Cosmo, briefly enough. Then Madame Roche bent forward and kissed his young cheek, like a mother, as she was. “We are widow and orphans,” she said, softly. “God will bless you--He is the guardian of such; and He will not let Huntley suffer when He sees how all of you do justice out of a free heart.” Cosmo was melted; he turned away his head to conceal the moisture in his own eyes--was it out of a free heart? He felt rebuked and humbled when he asked himself the question; but Madame Roche gave him no time to think of his own feelings. She wanted to know every thing about all that had occurred. She was full of curiosity and interest, natural and womanly, about not only the leading points of the story, but all its details, and as Marie did not appear, Cosmo by himself, with his beautiful old lady, was soon reconciled to the new circumstances, and restored to his first triumph. He had done what his father failed to do--what his father’s agents had never been able to accomplish--what newspaper advertisements had attempted in vain. He had justified his own hope, and realized his own expectation. He had restored home and fortune to the lost Mary of Melmar. A night and a morning were long enough for the sway of uncomfortable and discontented feelings. He gave himself up, once more, to his old enthusiasm, forgetting Huntley’s loss and Cameron’s heart-break, and his mother’s disappointment, in the inspiration of his old dreams, all of which were now coming true. The end of this conversation was, that Cosmo--charged with Madame Roche’s entire confidence, and acting as her representative--was to follow his former companions and return to Edinburgh as speedily as possible, and there to instruct his old acquaintance, Cassilis, to take steps immediately for the recovery of Melmar. He parted with the old lady, who was, and yet was not, the Mary of his fancy, that same evening--did not see Marie, who was fortunately kept in her room by an access of illness or peevishness, took leave of Baptiste and the old streets of St. Ouen with great content and exhilaration, and on the very next morning, at an hour as early, as chilly, and as dark as that of Cameron’s departure, began his journey home. CHAPTER LIX.