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                             MADONNA MARY.

                                A Novel.

                                   BY
                             MRS. OLIPHANT,

                               AUTHOR OF

              "LAST OF THE MORTIMERS," "IN THE DAYS OF MY
                 LIFE," "SQUIRE ARDEN," "OMBRA," "MAY,"
                               ETC., ETC.

                             _NEW EDITION._

                                LONDON:
                   CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
                                 1875.

                        [_All rights reserved._]




                                LONDON:
            SWIFT AND CO., NEWTON STREET, HIGH HOLBORN, W.C.




                             MADONNA MARY.





CHAPTER I.


Major Ochterlony had been very fidgety after the coming in of the mail.
He was very often so, as all his friends were aware, and nobody so much
as Mary, his wife, who was herself, on ordinary occasions, of an
admirable composure. But the arrival of the mail, which is so welcome an
event at an Indian station, and which generally affected the Major very
mildly, had produced a singular impression upon him on this special
occasion. He was not a man who possessed a large correspondence in his
own person; he had reached middle life, and had nobody particular
belonging to him, except his wife and his little children, who were as
yet too young to have been sent "home;" and consequently there was
nobody to receive letters from, except a few married brothers and
sisters, who don't count, as everybody knows. That kind of formally
affectionate correspondence is not generally exciting, and even Major
Ochterlony supported it with composure. But as for the mail which
arrived