in our heart, as in our heaven, is the
brightest sunshine to the blackest cloud!

CHAPTER XXVI. CONVERSATION WITH MY MOTHER.

I REACHED my own house in time to snatch two or three hours of repose,
before I paid my customary morning visit to my mother in her own room. I
observed, in her reception of me on this occasion, certain peculiarities
of look and manner which were far from being familiar in my experience
of her.

When our eyes first met, she regarded me with a wistful, questioning
look, as if she were troubled by some doubt which she shrunk from
expressing in words. And when I inquired after her health, as usual, she
surprised me by answering as impatiently as if she resented my having
mentioned the subject. For a moment, I was inclined to think these
changes signified that she had discovered my absence from home during
the night, and that she had some suspicion of the true cause of it. But
she never alluded, even in the most distant manner, to Mrs. Van
Brandt; and not a word dropped from her lips which implied, directly or
indirectly, that I had pained or disappointed her. I could only conclude
that she had something important to say in relation to herself or to
me--and that for reasons of her own she unwillingly abstained from
giving expression to it at that time.

Reverting to our ordinary topics of conversation, we touched on the
subject (always interesting to my mother) of my visit to Shetland.
Speaking of this, we naturally spoke also of Miss Dunross. Here, again,
when I least expected it, there was another surprise in store for me.

"You were talking the other day," said my mother, "of the green flag
which poor Dermody's daughter worked for you, when you were both
children. Have you really kept it all this time?"

"Yes."

"Where have you left it? In Scotland?"

"I have brought it with me to London."

"Why?"

"I promised Miss Dunross to take the green flag with me, wherever I
might go."

My mother smiled.

"Is it possible, George, that you think about this as the young lady in
Shetland thinks? After all the years that have passed, you believe in
the green flag being the means of bringing Mary Dermody and yourself
together again?"

"Certainly not! I am only humoring one of the fancies of poor Miss
Dunross. Could I refuse to grant her trifling request, after all I owed
to her kindness?"

The smile left my mother's face. She looked at me attentively.

"Miss Dunross seems to have produced a