Indeed, it was a saying of Marion
M'Gillivray's--from whose bonnie face the cloud had altogether passed,
leaving only a thoughtful gravity meet for a girl who would shortly
leave her maiden home for one far dearer--Marion often said that Mr.
Gwynne was trying to make his wife as learned as himself, and that his
influence was robbing their Scottish Academy of no one knew how many
grand pictures. Perhaps it might be--it was a natural and a womanly
thing that in her husband's fame Olive should almost forget her own.

When she had seen all things ready, Olive went away upstairs, and stood
by a child's bed--little Ailie's. Not the least sweet of all her new
ties was it, that Harold's daughter was now her own. And tender, like
a mother's, was the kiss with which she wakened the child. There was in
her hand a book--a birthday gift; for Ailie was nine years old that day.

"Oh, how good you are to me, my sweet, dear, new mamma!" cried the happy
little one, clinging round Olive's neck. "What a pretty, pretty book!
And you have written in it my name--'Ailie.' But," she added, after
a shy pause, "I wish, if you do not mind, that you would put there my
whole long name, which I am just learning to write."

"That I will, my pet. Come, tell me what shall I say--word for word,
'Alison'"------

"Yes, that is it--my beautiful long name--which I like so much, though
no one ever calls me by it--_Alison Sara Gwynne._"

"Sara! did they call you Sara?" said Olive, letting her pen fall. She
took the little girl in her arms, and looked long and wistfully into the
large oriental eyes--so like those which death had long sealed. And her
tears rose, remembering the days of her youth. How strange--how very
strange, had been her whole life's current, even until now! She thought
of her who was no more--whose place she filled, whose slighted happiness
was to herself the summit of all joy. But Heaven had so willed it, and
to that end had made all things tend. It was best for all. One moment
her heart melted, thinking of the garden at Oldchurch, the thorn-tree at
the river-side, and afterwards of the long-closed grave at Harbury, over
which the grass waved in forgotten silence. Then, pressing Ailie to
her bosom, she resolved that while her own life lasted she would be a
faithful and most loving mother unto poor Sara's child.

A _Mother!_--The word brought back--as it often did when Harold's
daughter called her by that name--another memory, never forg