“Ay, I mind it; Harold Gwynne told me, saying that Mrs. Rothesay had told him. Was she, then, so sweet and dainty a creature—your mother? Once Angus spoke to me of her—little Sybilla Hyde. She was his wife then, though we did not know it. Poor Angus, we loved him very much—better than he thought. Tears again, my dearie!”
“They do not harm me, Aunt Flora.”
“And so you know my dear Alison Balfour? She was younger than I, and yet you see we have both grown auld wives together. Little Olive, ye have come to me in a birthday gift, my dear. I am eighty years old to-day—just eighty years, thank the Lord!”
The old lady reverently raised her blue eyes—true Scottish eyes—limpid and clear as the dew on Scottish heather. Cheerful they were withal, for they soon began to flit hither and thither, following the motions of Jean's “eident hand” with most housewifely care. And Jean herself, a handmaid prim and ancient, but youthful compared to her mistress, seemed to watch the latter's faintest gesture with most affectionate observance. Of all the light traits which reveal character, none is more suggestive than the sight of a mistress whom her servants love.
After tea Mrs. Mora insisted on Olive's retiring for the night. “Your room has a grand view over the Braid Hills. They call them hills here; but oh! if ye had seen the blue mountains sweeping in waves from the old house at home. Night and day I was wearying for them, for years after I came to live at Morningside. But one must e'en dree one's weird!”
She always spoke in this rambling way, wandering from the subject, after the fashion of old age. Olive could have listened long to the pleasant stream of talk, which seemed murmuring round her, wrapping her in a soft dream of peace. She laid down her tired head on the pillow, with an unwonted feeling of calmness and rest. Even the one weary pain that ever pursued her sank into momentary repose. Her last waking thought was still of Harold; but it was more like the yearning of a spirit from beyond the grave.
Just between waking and sleeping Olive was roused by music. Her door had been left ajar, and the sound she heard was the voices of the household, engaged in their evening devotion. The tune was that sweetest of all Presbyterian psalmody, “plaintive Martyrs.” Olive caught some words of the hymn—it was one with which she had often, often been lulled to sleep in poor old Elspie's arms. Distinct and clear its quaint rhymes came back upon her memory now:
The Lord's my shepherd, I'll not want,
He makes me down to lie
In pastures green, He leadeth me
The quiet waters by.
Yea, though I walk in death's dark vale,
Yet will I fear none ill;
For Thou art with me, and Thy rod
And staff me comfort still.
Poor lonely Olive lay and listened. Then rest, deep and placid, came over her, as over one who, escaped from a stormy wrack and tempest, falls asleep amid the murmur of “quiet waters,” in a pleasant land.