hich calms fear and comforts
sorrow--the lesson of the earl's whole life--"Thy will be done!"

Chapter 15

"Helen, that boy of yours ought to be sent to college."

"Oh no! Surely you do not think it necessary?" said Helen, visibly
shrinking.

She and Lord Cairnforth were sitting together in the Castle library.
Young Cardross had been sitting beside them, holding a long argument
with his mother, as he often did, for he was of a decidedly
argumentative turn of mind, until, getting the worst of the battle, and
being rather "put down"--a position rarely agreeable to the
self-esteem of eighteen--he had flushed up angrily, made no reply,
but opened one of the low windows and leaped out on the terrace. There,
pacing to and fro along the countess's garden, they saw the boy, or
rather young man, for he looked like one now. He moved with a rapid
step, the wind tossing his fair curls--Helen's curls over again--
and cooling his cheeks as he tried to recover his temper, which he did
not often lose, especially in the earl's presence.

Experience had not effaced the first mysterious impression made on the
little child's mind by the wheeled chair and its occupant. If there was
one person in the world who had power to guide and control this
high-spirited lad, it was Lord Cairnforth. And as the latter moved his
chair a little round, so that he could more easily look out into the
garden and see the graceful figure sauntering among the flower-beds, it
was evident by his expression that the earl loved Helen's boy very
dearly.

"He is a fine fellow, and a good fellow as ever was born, that young man
of yours. Still, as I have told you many a time, he would be all the
better if he were sent to college."

"For his education?" I thought Duncan was fully competent to complete
that."

"Not altogether. But, for many reasons, I think it would be advisable
for him to go from home for a while."

"Why? Because his mother spoils him?"

The earl smiled, and gave no direct answer. In truth, the harm Helen
did her boy was not so much in her "spoiling"--love rarely injures
--as in the counteracting weight which she sometimes threw on the
other side--in the sudden tight rein which she drew upon his little
follies and faults--the painful clashing of two equally strong wills,
which sometimes happened between the mother and the son.

This was almost inevitable, with Helen's peculiar character. As she sat
there, the sun shining