y-station. When she arrived, it was already late, and she
had barely time to take her seat ere the carriages started. That moment
her quick ear caught the ringing of a horse's hoofs, and as the rider
leaped on the platform she saw it was Harold Gwynne. He looked round
eagerly--more eagerly than she had ever seen him look before. The train
was already moving, but they momently recognised each other, and Harold
smiled--his own frank affectionate smile. It fell like a sunburst upon
Olive Rothesay.

Her last sight of him was as he stood with folded arms, intently
watching the winding northward line. Then, feeling that this had taken
away half her pain, she was borne upon her solitary journey.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

There is not in the world a more exquisite sight than a beautiful old
age. It is almost better than a beautiful youth. Early loveliness
passes away with its generation, and becomes at best only a melancholy
tradition recounted by younger lips with a half-incredulous smile. But
if one must live to be the last relic of a past race, one would desire
in departing to leave behind the memory of a graceful old age. And since
there is only one kind of beauty which so endures, it ought to be a
consolation to those whom fate has denied the personal loveliness which
charms at eighteen, to know that we all have it in our power to be
beautiful at eighty.

Miss, or rather Mrs. Flora Rothesay--for so she was always
called--appeared to Olive the most beautiful old lady she had ever
beheld. It was a little after dusk on a dull wet day, when she reached
her journey's end. Entering, she saw around her the dazzle of a rich
warm fire-light, her cloak was removed by light hands, and she felt on
both cheeks the kiss of peace and salutation.

"Is that Olive Rothesay, Angus Rothesay's only child? Welcome to
Scotland--welcome, my dear lassie!"

The voice lost none of its sweetness for bearing, strongly and
unmistakably, the ".accents of the mountain tongue." Though more in
tone than phrase, for Mrs. Flora Rothesay spoke with all the purity of a
Highland woman.

Surely the breezes that rocked Olive's cradle had sung in her memory for
twenty years, for she felt like coming home the moment she set foot
in her native land. She expressed this to Mrs. Flora, and then, quite
overpowered, she knelt and hid her face in the old lady's lap, and her
excitement melted away in a soft dew--too sweet to seem like tears.

"The poor lassie! she'