g on Elspie's face her large
eyes, "was that my papa I saw?"

"It was just himsel, my sweet wee pet," cried Elspie, trying to stop her
with kisses; but Olive went on.

"He is not like mamma--he is great and tall, like you. But he did not
take up and kiss me, as you said he would."

Elspie had no answer for these words--spoken in a tone of quiet pain--so
unlike a child. It is only after many years that we learn to suffer and
be silent.

Was it that nature, ever merciful, had implanted in this poor girl,
as an instinct, that meek endurance which usually comes as the painful
experience of after-life?

A similar thought passed through Elspie's mind, while she sat with
little Olive at the window, where, a few years ago, she had stood
rocking the new-born babe in her arms, and pondering drearily on
its future. That future seemed still as dark in all outward
circumstances--but there was one ray of hope, which centred in the
little one herself. There was something in Olive which passed Elspie's
comprehension. At times she looked almost with an uneasy awe on the
gentle, silent child who rarely played, who wanted no amusing, but would
sit for hours watching the sky from the window, or the grass and waving
trees in the fields; who never was heard to laugh, but now and then
smiled in her own peculiar way--a smile almost "uncanny," as Elspie
expressed it. At times the old Scotswoman--who, coming from the
debateable ground between Highlands and Lowlands, had united to the
rigid piety of the latter much wild Gaelic superstition--was half
inclined to believe that the little girl was possessed by some spirit.
But she was certain it was a good spirit; such a darling as Olive
was--so patient, and gentle, and good--more like an angel than a child.

If her misguided parents did but know this! Yet Elspie, in her secret
heart, was almost glad they did not. Her passionate and selfish love
could not have borne that any tie on earth, not even that of father or
mother, should stand between her and the child of her adoption.

While she pondered, there came a light knock to the door, and Captain
Rothesay's voice was heard without--his own voice, soothed down to its
soft, gentleman-like tone; it was a rare emotion, indeed, could deprive
it of that peculiarity.

"Nurse, I wish to see Miss Olive Rothesay."

It was the first time that formal appellation had ever been given to the
little girl. Still it was a recognition. Elspie heard it with