jigs, while yer husband's far awa', and your
bairn sick! It's for nae gude I tell ye, Mrs. Rothesay."

Sybilla had looked a little subdued at the allusion to her husband, but
the moment Elspie mentioned the little Olive, her manner changed. "You
are always blaming me about the child, and I will not bear it. She is
quite well. Are you not, baby?"--the mother never would call her _Olive_.

A feeble, trembling voice answered from the little bed, "Yes, please,
mamma!"

"There, you hear, Elspie! Now don't torment me any more about her. But I
must go down stairs."

She danced across the room in a graceful waltzing step, held out her
hand towards the child, and touched one so tiny, cold, and damp, that
she felt half inclined to take and warm it in her own. But Elspie's
hawk-eyes were watching her, and she was ashamed. So she only said,
"Goodnight, baby!" and danced back again, out through the open door.

For hours Elspie sat in the dark room beside the bed of the little
child, who lay murmuring, sometimes moaning, in her sleep. She never
did moan but in her sleep, poor innocent! The sound of music and dancing
rose up from below, and then Mrs. Rothesay's singing.

"Ye'd better be hushin' your puir wee bairnie here, ye heartless woman!"
muttered Elspie, who grew daily more jealous over the forsaken child,
now the very darling of her old age. She knew not that her love for
Olive, and its open tokens shown by reproaches to Olive's mother, were
sure to suppress any dawning tenderness that might be awakened in Mrs.
Rothesay's bosom.

It had not done so yet, for many a time during the dance and song did
the touch of that little cold hand haunt the young mother, rousing
a feeling akin to remorse. But she threw it off again and again, and
entered with the gaiety of her nature into all the evening's pleasure.
Her enjoyment was at its height, when an old acquaintance, just
discovered--an English officer, quartered at the castle--proposed a
waltz. Before she had time to say "Yes" or "No," the music struck up one
of those enchanting waltz-measures which to all true lovers of dancing,
are as irresistible as Maurice Connor's "Wonderful Tune." Sybilla felt
again the same blithe young creature of sixteen, who had led the revels
at her first ball, dancing into the heart of one old colonel, six
ensigns, a doctor, a lawyer, and of Angus Rothesay. There was no
resisting the impulse: in a moment she was whirling away.

In the midst of the