It was Sabbath morning, but it was not a morning of rest; though it was Huntley’s first day at home, and though it did his heart good to see his mother, the young man’s heart was already astray and pre-occupied with his own thoughts; and Cosmo, full of subdued but unrecoverable excitement, which his mother’s jealous eye only too plainly perceived, covered the face of the Mistress with clouds. Yet a spectator might have supposed that breakfast-table a very centre of family love and harmony. The snow-white cloth, the basket of brown oat-cakes and white flour scones, of Marget’s most delicate manufacture, the great jug full of rich red June roses, which made a glory in the midst, and the mother at the head of her table, with those two sons in the bloom of their young manhood, on either side of her, and the dress of her widowhood throwing a certain, tender, pathetic suggestion into her joy and their love. It was a picture had it been a picture, which no one could have seen without a touching consciousness of one of the most touching sides of human life. A family which at its happiest must always recall and commemorate a perpetual lack and vacancy, and where all the affections were the deeper and tenderer for that sorrow which overshadowed them; the sons of their mother, and she was a widow! But, alas, for human pictures and ideals! The mother was restless and dissatisfied, feeling strange interests crowding in to the very hour which should be peculiarly her own; the young men were stirred with the personal and undisclosed troubles of their early life. They sat together at their early meal, speaking of common matters, eating daily bread, united yet separate, the peace of the morning only vailing over a surface of commotion, and Sabbath in every thing around save in their hearts. “It’s a strange minister--you’ll miss the old man, Huntley,” said the Mistress; “but you’ll write down your thanksgiving like a good bairn, and put an offering in the plate; put your name, say, ‘Huntley Livingstone returns thanks to God for his safe home-coming.’ There would have been nae need for that if Dr. Logan had been to the fore; he aye minded baith thanks and supplications; and I’ll never forget what petitions he made in his prayer the last Sabbath you were at hame. You’re early stirring, Cosmo--it’s no’ time yet for the kirk.” “I am going to Melmar, mother,” said Cosmo, in a low voice. The Mistress made no answer; a flush came over her face, and her brow contracted, but she only said, as if to herself:-- “It’s the Sabbath day.” “I went there this morning, to warn them of this man’s arrival,” said Cosmo, with excitement, “saying what _you_ thought. I did not see any of them; but Marie has one of her illnesses. They have no one to support them in any emergency. I must see that he does not break in upon them to-day.” The Mistress still made no answer. After a little struggle with herself, she nodded hastily.