ully; until
eternity, closing between them, sealed it with that best of earth's
blessings--the blessing that falls on a duteous daughter, whose mother
is with God.

When Captain Rothesay's affairs were settled, the sole wreck of his
wealth that remained to his widow and child was the small settlement
from Mrs. Rothesay's fortune, on which she had lived at Stirling. So
they were not left in actual poverty.

Still, Olive and her mother were poor--poor enough to make them desire
to leave prying, gossiping Oldchurch, and settle in the solitude of some
great town. "There," Olive said to herself, "I shall surely find
means to work for her--that she may have not merely necessaries, but
comforts."

And many a night--during the few weeks that elapsed before their home
was broken up--she lay awake by her sleeping mother's side, planning all
sorts of schemes; arranging everything, so that Mrs. Rothesay might not
be annoyed with arguings or consultations. When all was matured, she
had only to say, "Dearest mother, should we not be very happy living
together in London?" And scarcely had Mrs. Rothesay assented, than she
found everything arranged itself, as under an invisible fairy hand--so
that she had but to ask, "My child, when shall we go?"

The time of departure at last arrived. It was the night but one before
the sale. Olive persuaded her mother to go to rest early; for she
herself had a trying duty to perform--the examining of her father's
private papers. As she sat in his study--in solitude and gloom--the
young girl might have been forgiven many a pang of grief, even a shudder
of superstitious fear. But Heaven had given her a hero-soul, not the
less heroic because it was a woman's.

Her father's business-papers she had already examined; these were only
his private memoranda. But they were few,--Captain Rothesay's thoughts
never found vent in words; there were no data of any kind to mark the
history of a life, which was almost as unknown to his wife and daughter
as to any stranger. Of letters, she found very few; he was not a man who
loved correspondence. Only among these few she was touched deeply to
see some, dated years back, at Stirling. Olive opened one of them. The
delicate hand was that of her mother when she was young. Olive only
glanced at the top of the page, where still smiled, from the worn,
yellow paper, the words, "My dearest, dearest Angus;" and then, too
right-minded to penetrate further, folded it up agai