have expired like a faint-flickering taper.

Perhaps, in her madness, the unhappy mother might almost have desired
such an ending. As it was, the disappointed hope, which had at
first resembled positive dislike, subsided into the most complete
indifference. She endured her child's presence, but she took no notice
of it; she seemed to have forgotten its very existence. Her shattered
health supplied sufficient excuse for the utter abandonment of all a
mother's duties, and the poor feeble spark of life was left to Elspie's
cherishing. By night and by day the child knew no other resting-place
than the old nurse's arms, the mother's seeming to be for ever closed to
its helpless innocence. True, Sybilla kissed it once a day, when
Elspie brought the little creature to her, and exacted, as a duty, the
recognition which Mrs. Rothesay, girlish and yielding as she was, dared
not refuse. Her husband's faithful retainer had over her an influence
which could never be gainsaid.

Elspie seemed to be the sole regent of the babe's destiny. It was she
who took it to its baptism;--not the festal ceremony which had pleased
Sybilla's childish fancy with visions of christening robes and cakes,
but the beautiful and simple "naming" of Elspie's own church. She stood
before the minister, holding the desolate babe in her protecting arms;
and there her heart sealed the promise of her lips, to bring it up in
the knowledge and fear of God. And with an earnest credulity, which
contained the germ of purest faith, she, remembering the mother's dream,
called her nursling by the name of Olive.

She carried the babe home and laid it on Mrs. Rothesay's lap. The
young creature, who had so strangely renounced that dearest blessing of
mother-love, would fain have put the child aside; but Elspie's stern eye
controlled her.

"Ye maun kiss and bless your dochter. Nae tongue but her mither's suld
ca' her by her new-christened name."

"What name?"

"The name ye gied her yer ain sel."

"No, no. Surely you have not called her so. Take her away; she is not
my sweet angel-baby--the darling in my dream." And Sybilla hid her face;
not in anger, or disgust, but in bitter weeping.

"She's yer ain dochter--Olive Rothesay," answered Elspie, less harshly.
"She may be an angel to ye yet."

While she spoke, it so chanced that there flitted over the infant-face
one of those smiles that we see sometimes in young children--strange,
causeless smiles, which seem the refl