few minutes during which he sat down to wait for the carriage. Then he
took his daughter on his knee--an act of fatherly tenderness rather rare
with him.

"I wish you were not going, or that I were going with you, papa," Olive
whispered, nestling to him, in a sweet, childish way, though she was
almost a woman now. "How tired you look! You have not been in bed all
night."

"No; I had writing to do." As he spoke his countenance darkened.
"Olive," he said, looking at her with sorrowful, questioning eyes.

"Well, dear papa."

"Nothing--nothing. Is the carriage ready?"

"Not yet. You will have time just for one little thing--'twill take only
a minute," said Olive, persuasively.

"What is it, little one?"

"Mamma is asleep--she was tired and ill; but if you would run up-stairs,
and kiss her once again before you go, it would make her so much
happier--I know it would."

"Poor Sybilla!" he muttered, remorsefully, and quitted the room
slowly--not meeting his daughter's eyes; but when he came back, he took
her in his arms, very tenderly.

"Olive, my child in whom I trust, always remember I did love you--you
and your mother."

These were the last words she heard him utter, ere he went away.

CHAPTER XV.

Captain Rothesay had intended to make the business-excursion wait on
that of pleasure--if pleasure the visit could be called, which
was entered on from duty, and would doubtless awaken many painful
associations; but he changed his mind, and it was not until his return
from London, that he stayed on the way, and sought out the village of
Harbury.

Verbal landscape-painting is rarely interesting to the general reader;
and as Captain Rothesay was certainly not devoted to the picturesque,
it seems idle to follow him during his ten-mile ride from the nearest
railway station to the place which he discovered was that of Mrs.
Gwynne's abode, and where her son was "perpetual curate."

Her son! It seemed very strange to imagine Alison a mother; and yet,
while he thought, Angus Rothesay almost laughed at himself for his
folly. His boyish fancy had perforce faded at seventeen, and he was
now--pshaw!--he was somewhere above forty. As for Mrs. Gwynne, sixty
would probably be nearer her age. Yet, not having seen her since she
married, he never could think of her but as Alison Balfour.

As before observed, Captain Rothesay was by no means keenly susceptible
to beauty of scenery; otherwise, he would often have been attrac