ars
old), rose as if to take leave. One patted Peter on the head, and the
other ordered the chaise. Neither Laura nor Mrs. Peter Melcombe could
find courage to press them to eat, though their secluded lives and
old-fashioned manners would have made them quite capable of doing so if
they had felt at ease. They looked at one another as the two grand old
men withdrew, and their first words were of the disappointment the
grandmother would feel when she heard that they had hardly eaten
anything at all.

Madam Melcombe, however, asked no questions. She was found by them when
Mr. Mortimer and his brother had withdrawn sitting in her favourite
alcove with her chin resting upon her staff. She was deep in thought,
and excepting that she watched the chaise drearily as it wound down
among the apple and pear trees and was lost to sight, she did not appear
to be thinking of her sons. Nor did she mention them again, excepting
with reference to her funeral.

"He's a fine man," she remarked in a querulous tone; "he'll look grand
in his cloak and scarf when he stands over my grave with his hat off;
and I think (though Dan'el, you understand is to be chief-mourner) that
he and his brother had better follow me side by side, and their two sons
after them."

How little Laura and Mrs. Peter Melcombe had ever thought about these
old men, or supposed that they were frequently present to the mother's
mind. And yet now there seemed to be evidence that this was the case.

Two or three guarded questions asked the next day brought answers which
showed her to be better acquainted with their circumstances than she
commonly admitted. She had always possessed a portrait in oils of her
son Daniel. It had been painted before he left home, and kept him always
living as a beautiful fair-haired youth in her recollection. She took
pains to acquaint herself with his affairs, though she never opened her
lips concerning them to those about her.

His first marriage had been disastrous. His wife had deserted him,
leaving him with one child only, a daughter. Upon the death of this poor
woman many years afterwards, he had married a widow whose third husband
he was, yet who was still young, scarcely so old as his daughter.

Concerning this lady and her children the poor old mother-in-law
continually cogitated, having a common little photographic likeness of
her in which she tried to find the wifely love and contentment and all
the other endearing qualities she