d her, and almost grieved that I
had ever seen Olivia.

"I suppose it is all for the best," she answered, feebly. "O Martin! I
have seen your Olivia."

"Well?" I said.

"I did so want to see her," she continued--"though she has brought us
all into such trouble. I loved her because you love her. Johanna went
with me, because she is such a good judge, you know, and I did not like
to rely upon my own feelings. Appearances are very much against her; but
she is very engaging, and I believe she is a good girl. I am sure she is
good."

"I know she is," I said.

"We talked of you," she went on--"how good you were to her that week in
the spring. She had never been quite unconscious, she thought; but she
had seen and heard you all the time, and knew you were doing your utmost
to save her. I believe we talked more of you than of any thing else."

That was very likely, I knew, as far as my mother was concerned. But I
was anxious to hear whether Olivia had not confided to her more of her
secret than I had yet been able to learn from other sources. To a woman
like my mother she might have intrusted all her history.

"Did you find any thing out about her friends and family?" I asked.

"Not much," she answered. "She told me her own mother had died when she
was quite a child; and she had a step-mother living, who has been the
ruin of her life. That was her expression. 'She has been the ruin of my
life!' she said; and she cried a little, Martin, with her head upon my
lap. If I could only have offered her a home here, and promised to be a
mother to her!"

"God bless you, my darling mother!" I said.

"She intends to stay where she is as long as it is possible," she
continued; "but she told me she wanted work to do--any kind of work by
which she could earn a little money. She has a diamond ring, and a watch
and chain, worth a hundred pounds; so she must have been used to
affluence. Yet she spoke as if she might have to live in Sark for years.
It is a very strange position for a young girl."

"Mother," I said, "you do not know how all this weighs upon me. I
promised Julia to give her up, and never to see her again; but it is
almost more than I can bear, especially now. I shall be as friendless
and homeless as Olivia by-and-by."

I had knelt down beside her, and she pressed my face to hers, murmuring
those soft, fondling words, which a man only hears from his mother's
lips. I knew that the anguish of her soul was even greater t