visits of her
thousand-and-one acquaintances subsided into frigid morning calls,
at which the grim phantom of the husband frowned from a corner and
suppressed all idle chatter. Sybilla's favourite system of killing time
by half-hours in various idle ways, at home and abroad, was terminated
at once. She had now to learn how to be a duteous wife, always ready
at the beck and call of her husband, and attentive to his innumerable
wants.

She was quite horrified by these at first. The captain actually
expected to dine well and punctually, every day, without being troubled
beforehand with "What he would like for dinner?" He listened once
or twice, patiently too, to her histories of various small domestic
grievances, and then requested politely that she would confine such
details to the kitchen in future; at which poor Mrs. Rothesay retired
in tears. He liked her to stay at home in the evening, make his tea,
and then read to him, or listen while he read to her. This was the more
arduous task of the two, for dearly as she loved to hear the sound of
his voice.

Sybilla never could feel interested in the prosy books he read, and
often fell half asleep; then he always stopped suddenly, sometimes
looked cross, sometimes sad; and in a few minutes he invariably lighted
her candle, with the gentle hint that it was time to retire. But often
she woke, hours after, and heard him still walking up and down below, or
stirring the fire perpetually, as a man does who is obliged to make the
fire his sole companion.

And then Sybilla's foolish, but yet loving heart, would feel itself
growing sad and heavy; her husband's image, once painted there in such
glittering colours, began to fade. The real Angus was not the Angus of
her fancy. Joyful as was his coming home, it had not been quite what she
expected. Else, why was it that at times, amidst all her gladness, she
thought of their olden past with regret, and of their future with doubt,
almost fear.

But it was something new for Sybilla to think at all. It did her good in
spite of herself.

While these restless elements of future pain were smouldering in the
parents, the little neglected, unsightly blossom, which had sprung up
at their feet, lived the same unregarded, monotonous life as heretofore.
Olive Rothesay had attained to five years, growing much like a primrose
in the field, how, none knew or cared, save Heaven. And that Heaven
did both know and care, was evident from the daily sw