then over
their kind. Wherever he came, he seemed to say, "I rule--I am master
here!"

Olive Rothesay, innocent as she was of any harm to this gentleman or
to his child, felt as cowed and humbled as if she had done wrong. She
wished she could have fled like the little girl--fled out of reach of
his searching glance.

He waited for her to speak first, but she was silent; her colour rose
to her very temples; she knew not whether she ought to apologise, or to
summon her woman's dignity and meet the stranger with a demeanour like
his own.

She was relieved when the sound of his voice broke the pause.

"I fear I startled you, madam; but I was not at first aware who was
talking to my little girl. Afterwards, the few words of yours which I
overheard induced me to pause."

"What words?"

"About sleep, and dreams, and immortality. Your way of putting the case
was graceful--poetical Whether a child would apprehend it or not, is
another question."

Olive was surprised at the half-sarcastic, half-earnest way in which he
said this. She longed to ask what motive he could have had in bringing
the child up in such total ignorance of the first principles of
Christianity. The stranger seemed to divine her question, and answer it.

"No doubt you think it strange that my little daughter is so
ill-informed in some theological points, and still more that I should
have stopped you when you were kind enough to instruct her thereon. But,
being a father--to say nothing of a clergyman"--(Olive looked at him in
some surprise, and found that her interlocutor bore, in dress at least,
a clerical appearance)--"I choose to judge for myself in some things;
and I deem it very inexpedient that the feeble mind of a child should be
led to dwell on subjects which are beyond the grasp of the profoundest
philosopher."

"But not beyond the reverent faith of a Christian," Olive ventured to
say.

He looked at her with his piercing eyes, and said eagerly, "You think
so, you feel so?" then recovering his old manner, "Certainly--of
course--that is the great beauty of a woman's religion. She pauses not
to reason,--she is always ready to believe; therefore you women are a
great deal happier than the philosophers."

It was doubtful, from his tone, whether he meant this in compliment or
in sarcasm. But Olive replied as her own true and pious spirit prompted.

"It seems to me that while the intellect comprehends, the heart, or
rather the soul, is the onl