“Perhaps I am wrong,” she said, with a momentary falter. “There was no reason, it is true, why you should know mamma. And perhaps it is unkind and ungenerous of me. But--ah, Joanna, you guessed it when I did not know!--you said she must have been here--you are honest and knew no harm! My mother was born at Melmar; it is hers, though she is poor--and she is coming home.” “Coming home! this is but a poor story, mademoiselle,” said Melmar. “_That_ person died abroad long ago, and was mother to nobody; but it’s clever, by George! uncommonly clever. Her mother’s coming home, and my land belongs to her! cool, that, I must say. Will you take Patricia for your lady’s maid, mademoiselle?” “Ah, you sneer, you all sneer!” cried Desirée. “I could sneer too, if I were as guilty; but it is true, and you know it is true; you, who are our kinsman and should have cared for us--you, who have planned to deceive a poor stranger girl--you know it is true!” “If he does,” cried Joanna, “_you’re_ no’ to stand there and tell him. He has been as kind to you as if you belonged to us--you don’t belong to us--go--go away this moment. I will not let you stay here!” And Joanna stamped her foot in the excess of her indignation and sympathy with her father, who looked on, through all this side-play of feelings, entirely unmoved. Poor little Desirée, on the contrary, was stung and wounded beyond measure by Joanna’s violence. She gave her one terrified, passionate look, half reproachful, half defiant, had hard ado to restrain a burst of girlish, half-weeping recrimination, and then turned round with one sob out of her poor little heart, which felt as though it would burst, and went away with a forlorn, heroical dignity out of the room. Poor Desirée would not have looked back for a kingdom, but she hoped to have been called back, for all that, and could almost have fallen down on the threshold with mortification and disappointment, when she found that no one interfered to prevent her withdrawal. The poor child was full of sentiment, but had a tender heart withal. She could not bear to leave a house where she had lived so long after this fashion, and but for her pride, Desirée would have rushed back to fall into Joanna’s arms, and beg everybody’s pardon; but her pride sustained her in the struggle, and at length vanquished her “feelings". Instead of rushing into Joanna’s arms, she went to the Mistress, who still waited for her in the little room, and who had already been edified by hearing the fall of Oswald’s chair, and seeing that gentleman, as he went furiously forth, kicking Patricia’s lap-dog out of his way in the hall. The Mistress was human. She listened to those sounds and witnessed that sight with a natural, but not very amiable sentiment. She was rather pleased than otherwise to be so informed that she had brought a thunderbolt to Melmar.