took
her first walk on Scottish ground, it was with a sensation more akin to
happiness than she had felt for many a long month.

"And so you have never before seen your aunt," said one of the
M'Gillivrays;--for her life, Olive could not tell whether it was Miss
Jane, Miss Janet, or Miss Marion, though she had tried for half-an-hour
to learn the difference. "You like her of course--our dear old Auntie
Flora?"

"Aunt to which of you?" said Olive, smiling.

"Oh, she is everybody's Auntie Flora; no one ever calls her anything
else," observed little Maggie Oliphant, who, during all their walk clung
tenaciously to Miss Rothesay's hand, as most children were prone to do.

"I think," said the quiet Miss Anstruther, lifting up her brown eyes,
"that in all _our_ lives put together, we will never do half the good
that Aunt Flora has done in hers. Papa says, every one of her friends
ought to be thankful that she has lived an old maid!"

"Yes, indeed, for who else would have had patience with her cross old
brother Sir Andrew, until he died?" said Janet M'Gillivray.

"And who," added her sister, "would have come and been a mother to us
when we lost our own, living with us, and taking care of us for seven
long years?"

"I am sure," cried blithe Maggie, "my brothers and I used often to say,
that if Auntie Flora had been young, and any disagreeable husband
had come to steal her from us, we would have hooted him away down the
street, and pelted him with stones."

Olive laughed; and afterwards said, thoughtfully, "She has then lived a
happy life--has this good Aunt Flora!"

"Not always happy," answered the eldest and gravest of the M'Gillivrays.
"My mother once heard that she had some great trouble in her youth. But
she has outlived it, and conquered it in time. People say such things
are possible: I cannot tell," added the girl, with a faint sigh.

There was no more said of Mrs. Flora, but oftentimes during the day,
when some passing memory stung poor Olive, causing her to turn wearily
from the mirth of her young companions, there came before her in gentle
reproof the likeness of the aged woman who had lived down her one great
woe--lived, not only to feel but to impart cheerfulness.

A few hours after, Olive saw her aunt sitting smiling amidst a little
party which she had gathered together, playing with the children,
sympathising with those of elder growth, and looked up to by old and
young with an affection passing that of