For these five years had not been so peaceful as their predecessors--the face of this home country was much changed to some of the old dwellers here. Dr. Logan, old and well-beloved, was in his quiet grave, and Katie and her orphans, far out of the knowledge of the parish which once had taken so entire an interest in them, were succeeded by a new minister’s new wife, who had no children yet to gladden the manse so long accustomed to young voices; and the great excitement of the revolution at Melmar had scarcely yet subsided in this quiet place;--least of all, had it subsided with the Mistress, who, spite of a lurking fondness for little Desirée, could not help finding in the presence of Mary of Melmar a perpetual vexation. Their French habits, their language, their sentiments and effusiveness--the peevish invalid condition of Marie, and even the sweet temper of Madame Roche, aggravated with a perennial agitation, the hasty spirit of Mrs. Livingstone. She could not help hearing every thing that everybody said of them, could not help watching with a rather unamiable interest the failings and shortcomings of the family of women who had dispossessed her son. And then her other son--her Cosmo, of whom she had been so proud--could see nothing that did not fascinate and attract him in this little French household. So, at least, his mother thought. She could have borne an honest falling in love, and “put up with” the object of it, but she could not tolerate the idea of her son paying tender court to another mother, or of sharing with any one the divided honors of her maternal place. This fancy was gall and bitterness to the Mistress, and had an unconscious influence upon almost every thing she did or said, especially on those two days in every week which Cosmo spent at Norlaw. “It’s but little share his mother has in his coming,” she said to herself, bitterly; and even Marget found the temper of the Mistress rather trying upon the Sundays and Mondays; while between Cosmo and herself there rose a cloud of mutual offense and exasperation, which had no cause in reality, but seemed almost beyond the reach of either explanation or peace-making now.