"

"Harold could not. He was sair grieved, and bitterly he repented having
'robbed' you. But he was no the same man then that he is now. Ah, that
gay young wife of his--fair and fause, fair and fause! It's ill for a
man that loves such a woman. I would like well to see my dear Harold wed
to some leal-hearted lassie. But I fear me it will never be."

Thus the old lady's talk gently wandered on. Olive listened in silence,
her eyes vacantly turned towards the wide open country that sweeps
down from Duddingston Loch. The yellow harvest-clad valley smiled; but
beneath the same bright sky the loch lay quiet, dark, and still. The
sunshine passed over it, and entered it not. Olive wistfully regarded
the scene, which seemed a symbol of her own fate. She did not murmur at
it, for day by day her peace was returning. She tried to respond with
cheerfulness to the new affections that greeted her on every side; to
fill each day with those duties, that by the alchemy of a pious nature
are so often transmuted into pleasures. She was already beginning
to learn the blessed and heaven-sent truth, that no life ought to be
wrecked for the love of one human being, and that no sinless sorrow is
altogether incurable.

The rest of the drive was rather dull, for Mrs. Flora, usually the most
talkative, cheerful old lady in the world, seemed disposed to be silent
and thoughtful. Not sad--sadness rarely comes to old age. All strong
feelings, whether of joy or pain, belong to youth alone.

"Ye will ride with Marion M'Gillivray the day?" said Mrs. Flora, after
a somewhat protracted silence. "You bairns will not want an auld wifie
like me."

Olive disclaimed this, affirming, and with her whole heart, that she was
never so happy as when with her good Aunt Flora.

"'Tis pleasant to hear ye say the like of that. But it must be even
so--for this night I would fain bide alone at home."

The carriage stopped in Abercromby Place.

"I will see ye again the morn," the old lady observed, as her niece
descended. And then, after looking up pleasantly to the window, that was
filled with a whole host of juvenile M'Gillivrays vehemently nodding and
smiling, Aunt Flora pulled down her veil and drove away.

"I thought you would be given up to us for to-day," said Marion, as she
and Olive, now grown almost into friends, strolled out arm-in-arm along
the shady walks of Morning-side.

"Indeed! Did Aunt Flora say"----

"She said nothing--she never does. But fo