nt, a mercy, both to themselves and
others, quietly to have taken away.

But one thing the minister did in consequence of these somewhat sad and
painful musings. On his return to the clachan--where, of course, the
news of the earl's coming home had long spread, and thrown the whole
country-side into a state of the greatest excitement--he gave orders,
or at least, advice--which was equivalent to orders, since everybody
obeyed him--that there should be no special rejoicings on the earl's
coming home; no bonfire on the hill-side, or triumphal arches across the
road, and at the ferry where the young earl would probably land--
where, ten years before, the late Earl of Cairnforth had been not
landed, but carried, stone-cold, with his dripping, and his dead hands
still clutching the weeds of the loch. The minister vividly recalled
the sight, and shuddered at it still.

"No, no," said he, in talking the matter over with some of his people,
whom he went among like a father among his children, true pastor of a
most loving flock, "no; we'll wait and see what the earl would like
before we make any show. That we are glad to see him he knows well
enough, or will very soon find out. And if he should arrive on such a
night as this"--looking round on the magnificent June sunset,
coloring the mountains at the head of the loch--"he will hardly need
a brighter welcome to a bonnier home."

But the earl did not arrive on a gorgeous evening like this, such as
come sometimes to the shores of Loch Beg, and make it glow into a
perfect paradise: he arrived in "saft" weather--in fact, on a pouring
wet Saturday night, and all the clachan saw of him was the outside of
his carriage, driving, with closed blinds, down the hill-side. He had
taken a long round, and had not crossed the ferry; and he was carried as
fast as possible through the dripping wood, reaching, just as darkness
fell, the Castle door.

Mr. Cardross, perhaps, should have been there to welcome the child--
his conscience rather smote him that he was not--but it was the
minister's unbroken habit of years to spend Saturday evening alone in
his study. And it might be that, with a certain timidity, inherent in
his character, he shrank from this first meeting, and wished to put off
as long as possible what must inevitably be awkward, and might be very
painful. So, in darkness and rain, unwelcomed save by his own servants,
most of whom even had never yet seen him, the poor little e