“Olive!” The shrill terror of Mrs. Rothesay's voice rung through the room.
“Hush! we must be quiet, very quiet. Papa is dangerously ill at B——, and we must start at once. I have arranged all. Come, mamma, dearest!”
But her mother had fainted.
There was no time to lose. Olive snatched some restoratives, and then made ready to depart. Mrs. Rothesay, still insensible, was lifted into the carriage. She lay there, for some time, quite motionless, supported in her daughter's arms—to which never had she owed support before. As Olive looked down upon her, strange, new feelings came into the girl's heart. Filial tenderness seemed transmuted into a devotion passing the love of child to mother, and mingled therewith was a sense of protection, of watchful guardianship.
She thought, “What if my father should die, and we two should be left alone in the world! Then she will have none to look to save me, and I will be to her in the stead of all. Once, I think, she loved me very little; but, oh! mother, dearly we love one another now.”
When Mrs. Rothesay's senses returned, she lifted her head, with a bewildered air. “Where are we going? What has happened? I can't think clearly of anything.”
“Dearest mamma, do not try—I will think for us both. Be content; you are quite safe with your own daughter.”
“My daughter—ah! I remember, I fainted, as I did long years ago, when they told me something about my daughter. Are you she—that little child whom I cast from my arms? and now I am lying in yours!” she cried, her mind seeming to wander, as if distraught by this sudden shock.
“Hush, mamma! don't talk; rest quiet here.”
Mrs. Rothesay looked wistfully in her daughter's face, and there seemed to cross her mind some remembered sense of what had befallen. She clung helplessly to those sustaining arms—“Take care of me, Olive!—I do not deserve it, but take care of me!”