Mrs. Gwynne continued--"I don't think I can ever sufficiently thank you,
my dear Miss Rothesay."

"Say _Olive_, as you generally do."

For her Christian name sounded so sweet and homelike from Harold's
mother; especially now.

"_Olive_, then! My dear, how good you are to take Ailie so entirely
under your care and teaching. But for that, we must have sent her to
some school from home, and, I will not conceal from you, that would
have been a great sacrifice, even in a worldly point of view, since our
income is much diminished by my son's having been obliged to resign his
duties altogether, and take a curate. But tell me, do you think Harold
looks any better! What an anxious summer this has been!"

And Olive, hearing the heavy sigh of the mother, whose whole existence
was bound up in her son, felt that there was something holy even in
that deceit, or rather concealment, wherein she herself was now a
sorely-tried sharer. "You must not be too anxious," she said; "you know
that there is nothing dangerous in Mr. Gwynne's state of health, only
his brain has been overworked."

"I suppose so; and perhaps it was the best plan for him to give up all
clerical duties for a time. I think, too, that these frequent absences
do him good."

"I hope so too."

"Besides, seeing that he is not positively disabled by illness, his
parishioners might think it peculiar that he should continually remain
among them, and yet abstain from preaching. But my Harold is a strange
being; he always was. Sometimes I think his heart is not in his
calling--that he would have been more happy as a man of science than as
a clergyman. Yet of late he has ceased even that favourite pursuit; and
though he spends whole days in his study, I sometimes find that he has
not displaced one book, except the large Bible which I gave him when he
went to college. God bless him--my dear Harold!"

Olive's inmost heart echoed the blessing, and in the same words. For of
late--perhaps with more frequently hearing him called by the familiar
home appellation, she had thought of him less as _Mr. Gwynne_ than as
_Harold_.

"I wonder what makes your blithe Christal so late," observed Mrs.
Gwynne, abruptly, as if disliking to betray further emotion. "Lyle
Derwent promised to bring her himself--much against his will, though,"
she added, smiling. "He seems quite afraid of Miss Manners; he says she
teases him so!"

"But she suffers no one else to do it. If I say a word against