oonday to his study, that he might
be for a few moments alone. He was glancing over the sermon (sic)
the was to deliver that afternoon, when his mother, his proud and
happy mother, came quickly into the room, laid a sealed note on the
table and instantly withdrew, for she saw how he was occupied. When
he had finished his manuscript, the bishop opened the note and
read--could it have been with careless eyes?

"Duncan, I have knelt in the house of the Lord, to-day, and
witnessed your triumph. Ten years ago, when I went desolate and
wretched from your house, I might have prophesied your destiny.
Come, to-night, and behold _my_ triumph--at--the opera-house!

"Your sister,

ROSALIE."

Do you think that, as he read that summons, he hesitated as to
whether he should obey it? If his bishopric had been sacrificed by
it, he would have gone; if disgrace and danger had attended his
footsteps, he would have obeyed her bidding! The love which had been
strengthening in ten long years of loneliness and bereavement, was
not now to stop, to question or to fear.

"Accompany me, dear mother, this evening; I have made an engagement
for you," he said, as he went, she hanging on his arm, to the
cathedral for afternoon service.

"Willingly, my son," was the instant answer, and Duncan kept her to
her word.

But it was with wondering, with surprise that she did not attempt to
conceal, and with questions which were satisfied with no definite
reply, that Mrs. Melville found herself standing with her son in an
obscure corner of the opera-house that night. Soon all her
expressions of astonishment were hushed, but by another cause than
the mysterious inattention of her son: a queenly woman appeared upon
the stage; she lifted her voice, and sobbed the mournful wail which
opens the first scene in----.

For years there had not been such a sensation created among the
frequenters of that place, as now, by the appearance of this
stranger. The wild, singular style of her beauty made an impression
that was heightened by every movement of her graceful figure, every
tone of her rich melodious voice. She seemed for the time the very
embodiment of the sorrow to which she gave an expression, and the
effect was a complete triumph.

Mary Melville and her son gazed on the _debutante_--they had no
word, no look for each other: for they recognised in her voice the
tones of a grief of which long ago they heard the prelude--and every
note found its ech