“Na!” said the Mistress, with proud love and triumph; “my Huntley is nane the waur—bairn, do you think the like of you could harm my son, that I should hate you? Na! he would work his fingers to the bone, and eat dry bread a’ his days before he would touch the inheritance of the widow—loss of land or loss of gear is no such loss to my Huntley that I should think ill of any person for its sake and you’re my son’s kinswoman, and I’m his mother. Come hame with me till your ain mother is here.”
Without a word Desirée rose, dried her eyes, and held out her little hand to the Mistress, who took it doubtfully.
“I will be your daughter, your servant!” cried the little Frenchwoman, with enthusiasm; “I will come to learn what truth means. Wait but till I tell them. I will stay here no longer—I will do all that you say!”
In another moment she darted out of the room to prepare, afraid to linger. The Mistress looked after her, shaking her head.
“My daughter!” said the Mistress to herself, with a “humph!” after the words—and therewith she thought of Katie Logan; where was Katie now?
CHAPTER LXI.
The Melmar family had just concluded their luncheon, and were still assembled in the dining-room—all but Mrs. Huntley, who had not yet come down stairs—when Desirée, flushed and excited from her interview with the Mistress, who waited for her in the little room, came hastily in upon the party; without noticing any of the others Desirée went up at once to the head of the house, who glared at her from behind his newspaper with his stealthy look of suspicion and watchfulness, as she advanced. Something in her look roused the suspicions of Mr. Huntley; he gave a quick, angry glance aside at Oswald, as if inquiring the cause of the girl’s excitement, which his son replied to with a side-look of sullen resentment and mortification—an unspoken angry dialogue which often passed between the father and son, for Melmar had imposed upon the young man the task of keeping Desirée in ignorance and happiness, a charge which Oswald, who had lost even the first novelty of amusing himself with her found unspeakably galling, a constant humiliation. The little Frenchwoman came up rapidly to her host and employer—her cheek glowing, her eye shining, her small foot in her stout little winter-shoe sounding lightly yet distinctly on the carpet. They all looked at her with involuntary expectation. Something newly-discovered and strange shone in Desirée’s face.
“Sir,” she said, quickly, “I come to thank you for being kind to me. I come because it is honest to tell you—I am going away.”
“Going away? What’s wrong?” said Melmar, with a little alarm; “come into my study, mademoiselle, and we will put all right, never fear; that little deevil Patricia has been at her again!”
Desirée did not wait for the burst of shrewish tears and exclamations which even Patricia’s extreme curiosity could not restrain. She answered quickly and with eagerness,