he news of his son's disappearance without remark. Life for some time
was a dreary weight to him, he scarce felt as if he could lift it
again. Hope after hope had failed him. He had longed so to be a rich
man, had God in his anger granted him his wish? And was no other thing
to prosper with him? All the same he clung to his gold with a deeper
affection. When all other vices are old avarice is still young. As
ambition and other motives died out, avarice usurped their places, and
Tallisker saw with a feeling half angry, and half pitiful, the laird's
life dwindling down to this most contemptible of all aims. He kept his
duty as proprietor constantly before the laird, but he no longer
seemed to care that people should say, "Crawford's men have the best
laborers' cottages in Scotland."

"I hae made up my mind, Tallisker," said fretfully, "the warld thinks
more o' the who mak money than o' those who gie it awa." Certainly
this change was not a sudden one; for two years after Helen's death it
was coming slowly forward, yet there were often times when Tallisker
hoped that it was but a temptation, and would be finally conquered.
Men do not lose the noble savor of humanity in a moment. Even on the
downward road good angels wait anxiously, and whisper in every better
moment to the lapsing soul, "Return!"

But there was a seed of bitterness in Crawford's heart, that was
poisoning the man's spiritual life--a little bit of paper, yet it lay
like a great stone over his noblest feelings, and sealed them up as in
a sepulchre. Oh, if some angel would come and roll it away! He had
never told the dominie of Helen's bequest. He did not dare to destroy
the slip of paper, but he hid it in the most secret drawer of his
secretary. He told himself that it was only a dying sentiment in Helen
to wish it, and that it would be a foolish superstition in him to
regard it. Perhaps in those last moments she had not understood what
she was asking.

For a little while he found relief in this suggestion; then he
remembered that the request must have been dictated before the fever
had conquered her strength or judgment. The words were clearly written
in Helen's neat, precise manner; there was not a hesitating line in
the whole. She had evidently written it with care and consideration.
No one could tell how that slip of paper haunted him. Even in the
darkness of its secret hiding-place his spiritual eyes saw it clearly
day and night.

To give to the poo