mid, delicate mother, whose feeble frame
quivered beneath the lightest breath of suffering. Scarcely knowing what
she did, she flew down stairs.

"Not there, mamma, not there!" she cried, as Mrs. Rothesay was about to
enter the parlour. Olive drew her into another room, and made her sit
down.

"What is all this, my dear!--why do you look so strange! Is not your
papa come home? Let us go to him."

"We will, we will! But mamma!"--One moment she looked speechlessly in
Mrs. Rothesay's face, and then fell on her neck, crying, "I can't, I
can't keep it from you any longer. Oh, mother, mother! there is great
trouble come upon us; we must be patient; we must bear it together. God
will help us."

"Olive!" The shrill terror of Mrs. Rothesay's voice rung through the
room.

"Hush! we must be quiet, very quiet. Papa is dangerously ill at B----,
and we must start at once. I have arranged all. Come, mamma, dearest!"

But her mother had fainted.

There was no time to lose. Olive snatched some restoratives, and then
made ready to depart. Mrs. Rothesay, still insensible, was lifted into
the carriage. She lay there, for some time, quite motionless, supported
in her daughter's arms--to which never had she owed support before. As
Olive looked down upon her, strange, new feelings came into the girl's
heart. Filial tenderness seemed transmuted into a devotion passing
the love of child to mother, and mingled therewith was a sense of
protection, of watchful guardianship.

She thought, "What if my father should die, and we two should be left
alone in the world! Then she will have none to look to save me, and I
will be to her in the stead of all. Once, I think, she loved me very
little; but, oh! mother, dearly we love one another now."

When Mrs. Rothesay's senses returned, she lifted her head, with a
bewildered air. "Where are we going? What has happened? I can't think
clearly of anything."

"Dearest mamma, do not try--I will think for us both. Be content; you
are quite safe with your own daughter."

"My daughter--ah! I remember, I fainted, as I did long years ago, when
they told me something about my daughter. Are you she--that little child
whom I cast from my arms? and now I am lying in yours!" she cried, her
mind seeming to wander, as if distraught by this sudden shock.

"Hush, mamma! don't talk; rest quiet here."

Mrs. Rothesay looked wistfully in her daughter's face, and there seemed
to cross her mind some remembered sense