terest to observant minds, and
especially so to intelligent children, who are as yet lying on the
breast of Mother Nature only, nor have begun to feel or understand the
darker and sadder interests of human passion and emotion.

The little Earl of Cairnforth was one of these; and many a time, through
all the summers of his life; he recalled tenderly that first summer at
Cairnforth, when, no longer pent up between walls and roofs, or dragged
about in carriages, he learned, by Molcolm's aid and under Helen's
teaching, to chronicle time in different ways; first by the hyacinths
and primroses vanishing, and giving place to the wild roses--those
exquisite deep-red roses which belong especially to this country-side;
then by the woods--his own woods--growing fragrant with
innumerable honeysuckles; and lastly by the heather on the moorland--
Scotland's own flower--which clothes entire hillsides as with a
garment of gorgeous purple, and fills the whole atmosphere with the
scent of a spice-garden; and when it faded into a soft brown, dying
delicately, beautiful to the last, there appeared the brambles, trailing
every where, with their pretty yellowing leaves and their delicious
berries. How blithe, even like a mere "callant," big Malcolm was, when,
leaving the earl on the sunny hill-side under Miss Cardross's charge, he
used to wander off, and come back with his hands all torn and scratched,
to feed his young master with blackberries!

"He is not unhappy--I am sure the child is not unhappy," Helen often
said to her father, when--as was his way--Mr. Cardross would get
fits of uncertainty and downheartedness, and think he was killing his
pupil with study, or wearying him, and risking his health by letting him
do as much as his energetic mind, always dominant over the frail body,
prompted him to do. "Only let him love his life, and put as much in it
as he can, be it long or short, and then it will never be a sad life or
a life thrown away."

"Helen, you're not clever, but you're a wise little woman, my dear," the
minister would say, patting the flaxen curls or the busy hands--large
and brown, yet with a certain grace about them, too--helpful hands,
made to hold children, or tend sick folk, or sustain the feeble steps of
old age. She was "no bonnie" Helen Cardross; it was just a round, rosy,
sonsie face, with no features in particular, but she was pleasant to
look upon, and inexpressibly pleasant to live with; for it was such a