te and expectation, in one of the
alcoves, while the deep shadow of the house fell distinct and well
defined over the wilderness of a garden.

Her senses were more acute than usual. She was grasping her long staff,
and already wearying for them, when she heard the sound of wheels, and
presently after a foot in her parlour, and the nurse appeared with two
cards on a tray.

Mr. Mortimer, Mr. Augustus Mortimer. This formal introduction flurried
Madam Melcombe a little. "The gentlemen are coming," the nurse almost
whispered; and then she withdrew, and shutting the glass-doors behind
her, left this mother to meet with these sons.

Whatever anxiety, whatever sensations of maternal affection might have
been stirring within her, it is certain that her first feeling was one
of intense surprise. The well-remembered faces that she had cherished
now for much more than half a century--the tall, beautiful youth--the
fine boy, almost a child, that had gone off with him, could they be now
before her? She was not at all oblivious of the flight of time; she did
not forget that the eldest of these sons was scarcely nineteen years
younger than herself; yet she had made no defined picture of their
present faces in her mind, and it was not without a troubled sense of
wonder that she rose and saw coming on towards her two majestic old men,
with hair as white as snow.

Her first words were simple and hesitating. She immediately knew them
from one another.

"Son Dan'el," she said, turning to the taller, "I expect this is you;"
and she shifted her staff to her left hand while he took the right; and
then the other old man, coming up, stooped, and kissed her on the
forehead.

Madam Melcombe shed a few tears. Both her sons looked disturbed, and
very ill at ease. She sat down again, and they sat opposite to her. Then
there was such a long, awkward pause, and her poor hand trembled so
much, that at last, as if in order to give her time to feel more at
ease, her younger son began to talk to her of her grand-daughter who
lived with her, and of her little great-grandson, Peter Melcombe. He
hoped, he said with gravity, that they were well.

There seemed to be nothing else that either of them could think of to
say; and presently, helped by the rest their words gave her, Madam
Melcombe recovered her self-possession.

"Son Dan'el," she said, "my time must be short now; and I have sent for
you and your brother to ask a favour of you. I could not li