s he walked down the
room with his light, active step, and graceful, gentlemanly figure--a
youth who seemed born to be heir to all the splendors around him. Helen
clasped her hands tightly together on her lap, and her lips moved. She
did not speak, but the earl almost seemed to hear the great outcry of
the mother's heart going up to God--"Give any thing thou wilt to me,
only give him all!" Alas! That such a cry should ever fall back to
earth in the other pitiful moan, "Would God that I had died for thee, O
Abaslom, my son--my son!"

But it was not to be so with Helen Bruce. Her son was no Absalom. Her
days of sorrow were ended.

Laird Cairnforth saw how violently affected she was, and began to talk
to her in a commonplace and practical manner about all that he and
Cardross had been arranging that morning.

"And I must say that, though he will never shine at college, and
probably his grandfather would mourn over him as having no learning,
there is an amount of solid sense about the fellow with which I am quite
delighted. He is companionable too--knows how to make use of his
acquirements. Whatever light he possesses, he will never hide it under
a bushel, which is, perhaps, the best qualification for the position
that he will one day hold. I have no fear about Cardross. He will be
an heir after my own heart--will accomplish all I wished, and
possibly a little more."

Mrs. Bruce answered only by tears.

"But there is one thing which he and I have settled between us, subject
to your approval, of course. He must go back to college immediately."

"To Edinburg?"

"Do not look so alarmed, Helen. No, not Edinburg. It is best to break
off all associations there--he wishes it himself. He would like to
go to a new University--St. Andrew's."

"But he knows nobody there. He would be quite alone. For I can not--
do you not see I can not?--leave my father. Oh, it is like being
pulled in two," cried Mrs. Bruce, in great distress.

"Be patient, Helen, and hear. We have arranged it all, the boy and I.
Next week we are both bound for St. Andrew's."

"You?"

"You think I shall be useless? That it is a man, and not such a
creature as I, who ought to take charge of your boy?"

The earl spoke with that deep bitterness which sometimes, though very,
very rarely, he betrayed, till he saw what exceeding pain he had given.

"Forgive me, Helen; I know you did not mean that; but it was what I
myself often thought unt