est.

Much sorrow had been her life's portion; but never until this hour had
Olive Rothesay stood face to face with crime. She had now to learn the
crowning lesson of virtue--how to deal with vice. Not by turning away
in saintly pride, but by boldly confronting it, with an eye stern in
purity, yet melting in compassion; remembering ever--

How all the souls that were, were forfeit once; And He who might the
vantage best have took Found out the remedy.

Angus Rothesay's daughter read over once more the record of his sin. In
so doing, she was struck with the depth of that remorse which, to secure
a future expiation, threw aside pride, reserve, and shame. How awful
must have been the repentance which had impelled such a confession, and
driven a father to humble himself in the dust before his own child!
She seemed to hear, rising from the long-closed grave, that mournful,
beseeching cry, "Atone my sin!" It silenced even the voice of her
mother's wrongs.

This duty then remained, to fulfil which--as it would appear--Olive had
been left alone on earth. The call seemed like that of fate; nay, she
half-shuddered to think of the almost supernatural chance, which had
arranged everything before her, and made her course so plain. But it had
often happened so. Her life appeared as some lives do, all woven about
with mysteries; threads of guidance, first unseen, and then distinctly
traced, forcing on the mind that sweet sense of invisible ministry which
soothes all suffering, and causes a childlike rest on the Omnipotence
which out of all evil continually evolves good.

With this thought there dawned upon Olive a solemn sense of calm. To lay
down this world's crown of joys, and to take up its cross--no longer
to be ministered unto, but to minister,--this was to be her portion
henceforth, and with this holy work was her lonely life to be filled.

"I will do it," she cried. "O my poor father, may God have forgiven you,
as my mother would, and as I now do! It is not mine to judge your sin;
enough for me is the duty to atone it. How can this be best fulfilled?"

She sat long in silence, mournfully pondering. She tried to collect
every scattered link of memory respecting what she had heard of
Christal's mother. For such, she now knew, was the woman who, for the
time, had once strongly excited her girlish imagination. That visit
and its incidents now came vividly back upon her memory. Much there
was which made her naturally revolt f