true?"

"No," said the earl.

"You wish she had waited till your return?"

"Yes."

The minister looked sorry; but still he evidently had not the slightest
suspicion that aught was amiss.

"You must forgive my girl," said he. "She meant no disrespect to her
dear old friend; but messages are so easily misconstrued. And then, you
see, a lover's impatience must be considered. We must excuse Captain
Bruce, I think. No wonder he was eager to get our Helen."

And the old man smiled rather sadly, and looked wistfully round the
Manse parlor, whence the familiar presence had gone, and yet seemed
lingering still--in her flower-stand, her little table, her
work-basket; for Mr. Cardross would not have a single article moved.
"She will like to see them all when she comes back again," said he.

"And you--were you quite satisfied with the marriage?" asked the
earl, making his question and the tone of it as commonplace and cautious
as he could.

"Why not? Helen loved him, and I loved Helen. Besides, my own married
life was so happy; God forbid I should grudge any happiness to my
children. I knew nothing but good of the lad; and you liked him too;
Helen told me you had specially charged her, if ever she had an
opportunity, to be kind to him."

Lord Cairnforth almost groaned.

"Captain Bruce declared you must have said it because you knew of his
attachment, which he had not had courage to express before, but had
rather appeared to slight her, to hide his real feelings, until he was
assured of your consent."

The earl listened, utterly struck dumb. The lies were so plausible, so
systematic, so ingeniously fitted together, that he could almost have
deluded himself into supposing them truth. No wonder, then, that they
had deluded simple Helen, and her even simpler and more unworldly
father.

And now the cruel question presented itself, how far the father was to
be undeceived?

The earl was, both by nature and circumstances, a reserved character;
that is, he did not believe in the duty of every body to tell out every
thing. Helen often argued with him, and even laughed at him, for this;
but he only smiled silently, and held to his own opinion, taught by
experience. He knew well that her life--her free open, happy life,
was not like his life, and never could be. She had yet to learn that
bitter but salutary self-restraint, which, if it has to suffer, often
for others' sake as well as for its own, prefers to suffe