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 forgotten, though sealed among the holy records of the past. Even on her marriage-day the thought had come—“O thou, to whom in life I gave all love, all duty,—now needed by thee no more, both pass unto him. If souls can behold and rejoice in the happiness of those beloved on earth, mother, look down from heaven and bless my husband!”
Nor did it wrong the dead, if this marriage-bond involved another, which awakened in Olive feelings that seemed almost a renewal of the love once buried in Mrs. Rothesay's grave. And Harold's wife inly vowed, that while she lived, his mother should never want the devotion and affection of a daughter.
In the past fading memories of Olive's former life was one more, which now grew into a duty, over whose fulfilment, even amidst her bridal happiness, she pondered continually; and talked thereof to her husband, to whom it was scarcely less absorbing.
Since they came home to Morningside, they had constantly sought at St. Margaret's for news of Christal Manners.
Many times Olive had written to her, but no answer came. The silence of the convent walls seemed to fold itself over all revelations of the tortured spirit which had found refuge there. However, Christal had taken no vows. Mrs. Flora and Harold had both been rigid on that point, and the good nuns reverenced their order too much to admit any one who might have sought it from the impulse of despair, rather than from any pious “vocation.”