s just wearied out!" said Mrs. Flora, laying her
hands on Olive's hair. "Jean, get her some tea. Now, my bairn, lift
up your face. Ay, there it is--a Rothesay's, every line! and with the
golden hair too. Ye have heard tell of the weird saying, about the
Rothesays with yellow hair? No? We will not talk of it now." And the
old lady suddenly looked thoughtful--even somewhat grave. When Olive
rose up, she made her bring a seat opposite to her own arm-chair, and
there watched her very intently.

Olive herself noticed her aunt with curious eyes. Mrs. Flora's attire
was quite a picture, with the ruffled elbow-sleeves and the long, square
boddice, over which a close white kerchief hid the once lovely neck and
throat of her whom old Elspie had chronicled--and truly--as "the Flower
of Perth." The face, Olive thought, was as she could have imagined Mary
Queen of Scots grown old. But age could never obliterate the charm of
the soft languishing eyes, the almost infantile sweetness of the mouth.
Therein sat a spirit, ever lovely, because ever loving; smiling away all
natural wrinkles--softening down all harsh lines. You regarded them no
more than the faint shadows in a twilight landscape, over which the
soul of peace is everywhere diffused. There was peace, too, in the very
attitude--leaning back, the head a little raised, the hands crossed,
each folded round the other's wrist. Olive particularly noticed these
hands. On the right was a marriage-ring which had outlasted two lives,
mother and daughter; on the left, at the wedding-finger, was another,
a hoop of gold with a single diamond. Both seemed less ornaments
than tokens--gazed on, perhaps, as the faint landmarks of a long past
journey, which now, with its joys and pains alike, was all fading into
shadow before the dawn of another world.

"So they called you 'Olive,' my dear," said Mrs. Flora. "A strange name!
the like of it is not in our family."

"My mother gave it me from a dream she had."

Olive.

"Now, my bairn, lift up your face."

[Illustration: Page 314, Now, my bairn, lift up your face]

"Ay, I mind it; Harold Gwynne told me, saying that Mrs. Rothesay had
told _him_. Was she, then, so sweet and dainty a creature--your mother?
Once Angus spoke to me of her--little Sybilla Hyde. She was his
wife then, though we did not know it. Poor Angus, we loved him very
much--better than he thought. Tears again, my dearie!"

"They do not harm me, Aunt Flora."

"And so you kno