mere kindred. And then there
came a balm of hope to the wounded spirit that had felt life's burden
too heavy to be borne.

"How happy you are, and how much everyone loves you!" said Olive, when
Mrs. Flora and herself were left alone, and their hearts inclined each
to each with a vague sympathy.

"Yours must have been a noble woman's life."

"I have tried to make it so, as far as I could, my dear bairn; and the
little good I have done has come back upon me fourfold. It is always
so."

"And you have been content--nay happy!"

"Ay, I have! God quenched the fire on my own hearth, that I might learn
to make that of others bright My dear, one's life never need be empty of
love, even though, after seeing all near kindred drop away, one lingers
to be an old maid of eighty years."

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

"No letters to-day from Harbury!" observed Mrs. Mora, as, some weeks
after Olive's arrival, they were taking their usual morning airing along
the Queen's Drive. "My dear, are you not wearying for news from home?"

"Aunt Flora's house has grown quite home-like to me," said Olive,
affectionately. It was true. She had sunk down, nestling into its peace
like a tired broken-winged dove. As she sat beside the old lady, and
drank in the delicious breezes that swept across from the Lothians, she
was quite another creature from the pale drooping Olive Rothesay who had
crept wearily up Harbury Hill. Still, the mention of the place even now
took a little of the faint roses from her cheek.

"I am glad you are happy, my dear niece," answered Mrs. Flora; "yet
others should not forget you."

"They do not. Christal writes now and then from Brighton, and Lyle
Derwent indulges me with a long letter every week," said Olive, trying
to smile. She did not mention Harold. She had hardly expected him
to write; yet his silence grieved her. It felt like a mist of cold
estrangement rising up between them. Yet--as sometimes she tried to
think--perhaps it was best so!

"Alison Gwynne was aye the worst of all correspondents," pursued the old
lady, "but Harold might write to you: I think he did so once or twice
when he was living with me here, this summer."

"Yes;" said Olive, "we have always been good friends."

"I know that. It was not little that we talked about you. He told me all
that happened long ago between your _father_ and himself. Ah, that was a
strange, strange thing!"

"We have never once spoken of it--neither I nor Mr. Gwynne.