eetness that was
stealing into this poor wayside flower, so that it would surely one day
be discovered through the invisible perfume which it shed.

Captain Rothesay kept to his firm resolve of seeing his little daughter
in her nursery, once a day at least. After a while, the visit of a few
minutes lengthened to an hour. He listened with interest to Elspie's
delighted eulogiums on her beloved charge, which sometimes went so far
as to point out the beauty of the child's wan face, with the assurance
that Olive, in features at least, was a true Rothesay. But the father
always stopped her with a dignified, cold look.

"We will quit that subject, if you please."

Nevertheless, guided by his rigid sense of a parent's duty, he showed
all kindness to the child, and his omnipotent way over his wife exacted
the same consideration from the hitherto indifferent Sybilla. It might
be, also, that in her wayward nature, the chill which had unconsciously
fallen on the heart of the wife, caused the mother's heart to awaken And
then the mother would be almost startled to see the response which this
new, though scarcely defined tenderness, created in her child.

For some months after Captain Rothesay's return, the little family lived
in the retired old-fashioned dwelling on the hill of Stirling. Their
quiet round of uniformity was only broken by the occasional brief
absence of the head of the household, as he said, "on business."
_Business_ was a word conveying such distaste, if not horror, to
Sybilla's ears, that she asked no questions, and her husband volunteered
no information. In fact, he rarely was in the habit of doing so--whether
interrogated or not.

At last, one day when he was sitting after dinner with his wife and
child--he always punctiliously commanded that "Miss Rothesay" might be
brought in with the dessert--Angus made the startling remark:

"My dear Sybilla, I wish to consult with you on a subject of some
importance."

She looked up with a pretty, childish surprise.

"Consult with me! O Angus! pray don't tease me with any of your hard
business matters; I never could understand them."

"And I never for a moment imagined you could. In fact, you told me so,
and therefore I have never troubled you with them, my dear," was the
reply, with just the slightest shade of satire. But its bitterness
passed away the moment Sybilla jumped up and came to sit down on the
hearth at his feet, in an attitude of comical attention. Th