erk, or tutor, or any thing, rather than
encroach farther on Lord Cairnforth's generosity.'."

"Poor boy! poor boy!"

"Then you don't think him altogether a bad boy?" appealed Mrs. Bruce,
pitifully. "You do not fear that I may live to weep over the day when
my son was born?"

The earl smiled, and that quiet, half-amused smile, coming upon her in
her excited state, seemed to soothe the mother more than any reasoning
could have done.

"No, Helen, I do not think any such thing. I think the lad has been
very foolish, and we may have been the same. We kept him in
leading-strings too long, and trusted him out of them too suddenly. But
as to his being altogether bad--Helen Cardross's son, and the
minister's grandson--nonsense, my dear."

Mr. Cardross might have heard himself named, for he stirred in his
peaceful slumbers, and Helen hastily took her letter from Lord
Cairnforth's hand."

"Not a word to him. He is too old. No trouble must ever come near him
any more."

"No, Helen. But remember your promise to do nothing till you have
talked with me. It is my right, you know. The boy is my boy too. When
will you come up to the Castle?" To-morrow? Nay, to-night, if you
like."

"I will come to-night."

So, at dusk, in the midst of a wild storm, such as in these regions
sometimes, nay, almost always succeeds very calm, mild autumn days,
Helen appeared at the Castle, and went at once into the library where
the earl usually sat. Strange contrast it was between the spacious
apartment, with its lofty octagon walls laden with treasures of
learning; book-shelves, tier upon tier, reaching to the very roof, which
was painted in fresco; every ornamentation of the room being also made
as perfect as its owner's fine taste and lavish means could accomplish,
and this owner, this master of it all, a diminutive figure, sitting all
alone by the vacant fireside--before him a little table, a lamp, and
a book. But he was not reading; he was sitting thinking, as he often
did now; he said he had read so much in his time that he was rather
weary of it, and preferred thinking. Of what? the life he had passed
through--still, uneventful, and yet a full and not empty human life?
Or it might be, oftener still, upon the life to come?

Lord Cairnforth refused to let his visitor say one word, or even sit
down, till he had placed her in Mrs. Campbell's charge, to be dried and
reclothed, for she was dripping wet with rain--such rain as