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.