d I will be your lover, Miss Olive," said he, stoutly; "for I
love you very much indeed. I should so like to kiss you--may I?"

She stooped down; moved almost to tears.

"Why are you always so sad? why do you never laugh, like Sara or the
other young ladies we know?"

"Because I am not like Sara, or like any other girl. Ah! Lyle, all is
very different with me. But, my little knight, this can scarcely be
understood by one so young as you."

"Though I am a little boy, I know thus much, that I love you, and think
you more beautiful than anybody else in the world."

And speaking rather loudly and energetically, he was answered by a burst
of derisive laughter from behind the wall.

Olive crimsoned; it was one more of those passing wounds which her
sensitive nature now continually received. Was even a child's love for
her deemed so unnatural, and that it should be mocked at thus cruelly?
Lyle, with a quickness beyond his years, seemed to have divined her
thoughts, and his gentle temper was roused into passion.

"I will kill Bob, I will! Never mind him, sweet, dear, beautiful Miss
Rothesay; I love you, and I hate him."

"Hush! Lyle, hush! that is wrong." And then she was silent. The little
boy stood by her side, his face still burning with indignation.

Soon Olive's trouble subsided. She whispered to herself, "It must be
always thus--I will try to bear it," and then she became composed. She
bade her little friend adieu, telling him she was going back into the
house.

"But you will forgive all, you will not think of anything that would
grieve you?" said Lyle, hesitatingly.

Olive promised, with a patient smile.

"And to prove this, will you kiss your little knight once again?"

Her soft drooping hair swept his cheek; her lips touched his. Lyle
Derwent never forgot this kiss of Olive Rothesay's.

The young girl entered the house. Within it was the quiet of a Sunday
afternoon. Her mother had gone to a distant church, and there was none
left "to keep house," save one of the maids and the old grey cat, that
dosed on the window-sill in the sunshine. The cat was a great pet of
Olive's; and the moment it saw its young mistress, it was purring round
her feet, following her from room to room, never resting until she took
it up in her arms. The love even of a dumb animal touched her then. She
sat down on her own little low chair, spread on her lap the smooth white
apron which Miss Pussy loved--and so she leaned back, soot