But Menie’s voice was choked; her head bowed down upon her folded arms; her strength and her heart were overcome. The room was only partially lighted. So vacant--only these two figures, with their little table and their lamp at one end--it looked lonely, silent, desolate; and you could hear so plainly the great struggle which Menie had with these strong sobs and tears. Mrs Laurie wiped a few hot hasty drops from her own eyes. She was not much used to contest; nor was it in her to be inflexible and stern; and the mother could not see her child’s distress. “Menie!” Menie can make no answer; and Mrs Laurie rises to go to her side, to pass a tender caressing hand over the bowed head, to shed back the disordered hair. “Menie, my dear bairn, I did not mean to vex you. I will do anything--anything, Menie; only do not let me see you in such grief as this.” “He is not what you think, mother--he is not what you think,” cried Menie; “it is not like this what he says of you. O mother! I do not ask you to do him justice--to think well of him. I ask a greater thing of you;--mother, hear me--I ask you to like him for Menie’s sake.” And it will not do to evade this petition by caresses, by soothing words, by gentle motherly tenderness. “Yes, Menie, my darling, I’ll try,” said Mrs Laurie at last, with tearful eyes. “Do you think it is pleasant to me to be at strife with Randall? God forbid! and him my dear bairn’s choice; but do not look at me with such a pitiful face. Menie, we’ll begin again.” Was Menie content?--for the moment more than content, springing up into a wild exhilaration, a burst of confidence and hope. But by-and-by the conversation slackened--by-and-by the room became quite silent, with its dim corners, its little speck of light, and the two figures at its farther end. A heavy stillness brooded over them--they forgot that they had been talking--they forgot, each of them, that she was not alone. The leaves stirred faintly on the windows--the night-wind rustled past the yew-tree on the lawn. From the other end of the house came sometimes a stir of voices, the sound of a closed or opened door: but here everything was silent--as still as if these were weird sisters, weaving, with their monotonous moving fingers, some charm and spell; while, down to the depths--down, down, as far into the chill and dark of sad presentiment as a heart unlearned could go--fluttering, with its wings close upon its breast, its song changed into a mournful cry--down out of the serene heavens, where it had its natural dwelling, came Menie Laurie’s quiet heart. CHAPTER XVII. Through the depth and darkness of the summer-night, you can hear Mrs Laurie’s quiet breathing as she lies asleep. With a pain at her heart she lay down, and when she wakes she will feel it, or ever she is aware that she has awaked; but still she sleeps: blessing on the kind oblivion which lays all these troubles for a time to rest.