“Let them bear it as they dow,” said the Mistress, with an angry triumph; “neither comfort nor help to any mortal has come out of Me’mar for mony a day;” and she received the unfortunate little cause of all this commotion with more favor than before. Poor little Desirée came in with a quivering lip and a full eye, scarcely able to speak, but determined not to cry, which was no small trial of resolution. The family of Melmar were her mother’s enemies--some of them had tried to delude, and some had been unkind to herself--yet she knew them; and the Mistress, who came to take her away, was a stranger. It was like going out once more into the unknown world. So Desirée left Melmar, with a heart which fluttered with pain, anger, indignation, and a strange fear of the future, and the Mistress guided to Norlaw almost with tenderness the child of that Mary who had been a lifelong vexation to herself. They left behind them no small amount of dismay and anxiety, all the house vaguely finding out that something was wrong, while Joanna alone stood by her father’s side, angry, rude, and careless of every one, bestowing her whole impatient regards upon him. CHAPTER LXII. “Happened!” said bowed Jaacob, with a little scorn; “what should have happened?--you dinna ca’ this place in the world--naething, so far as I can tell, ever happens here except births and deaths and marriages; no muckle food for the intelleck in the like of them, though I wouldna say but they are necessary evils--na, laddie, there’s little to tell you here.” “Not even about the Bill?” said Cosmo; “don’t forget I’ve been abroad and know nothing of what you’ve all been doing at home.” “The Bill--humph! it’s a’ very weel for the present,” said Jaacob, with a twinkle of excitement in his one eye, “but as for thae politicians that ca’ it a final measure, I wouldna gie that for them,” and Jaacob snapped his fingers energetically. “It hasna made just a’ that difference in the world ane would have expected, either,” he added, after a moment, a certain grim humor stealing into his grotesque face; “we’re a’ as nigh as possible just where we were. I’m no’ what you would ca’ a sanguine philosopher mysel’. I ken human nature gey weel; and I canna say I ever limited my ain faith to men that pay rent and taxes at so muckle a year; but it doesna make that difference ane might have looked for. A man’s just the same man, callant--especially if he’s a poor creature with nae nobility in him--though you do gie him a vote.” “Yet it’s all the difference,” cried Cosmo, with a little burst of boyish enthusiasm, “between the freeman and the slave!”