'"What trash do you speak?" the priest suddenly exclaimed, in great wrath; "can there be any harm in losing a little image of baked clay, not worth an anna! I have dozens of such in my temple close by; let us each choose one, and keep silence on the subject!" 'The subadar did so then, but chose this fine silver one, which he bestowed on me for kindness shown to him when dying of a wound received in a skirmish, and I brought it home as a bauble for you, Cousin Olive.' She placed the idol on the table, and remained silent, while Allan eyed her wistfully. 'Why is my presence so distasteful to you?' he asked, after a minute's pause. 'Distasteful! Oh! Allan, don't say so,' said she, impressed by the pathos of his tone, but for a moment only; 'it is you who think, or seem to think so.' 'Olive!' he exclaimed, a little impatiently and reproachfully as he drew near her. 'There--there--that will do,' said she, starting up, 'don't bring down the ceiling on me--auntie more than all!' And she swept from the room, leaving the idol behind her. Allan sighed with annoyance, and addressed her no more during the whole of that day. She was conscious of this, for she remarked to Lady Aberfeldie in the evening, 'How odd--how strange Cousin Allan is to me!' 'Strange?' 'Yes, aunt.' 'I know not what you mean, Olive,' she replied, a little gravely and severely; 'but to me it seems that you are always strange, and not my son, the Master.' Lady Aberfeldie had a soft, but set face of the classic type, with a mouth that, though beautiful and aristocratic, could become very fixed in expression at times, and it seemed so now to Olive, thus that young lady withdrew. 'Our Allan is young and handsome, noble and most unselfishly in love with her, as I am beginning to hope, Eveline, so what more would Olive Raymond wish for?' said Lady Aberfeldie to her daughter. 'She would have that, which she has not, mamma, perfect freedom to accept or refuse whom she chose. Unselfish in love I know Allan must be; but that is precisely the point which Olive is left to doubt.' 'Wherefore?' 'Through that unlucky will, which makes a kind of bondswoman of her.' 'I would to heaven the silly document had never been framed! I have often feared that it might lead to all our attention, care, and affection being misconstrued by her; but Allan might have been sickly, weakly, even deformed, and, with the terms of this will hanging over her, what would she have thought then?' 'Then, as I have heard her say, the will might be reduced by a court of law.' At this reply a clouded expression came into the fair, colourless face of Lady Aberfeldie, but just then a servant in the Graham livery, yellow and black, approached with a note on a salver.