remembering the lad who would
let nothing come between him and the gratification of his own foolish
desires.

"You dinna mind your cousin Hugh, Lilias, my dear?" said Mrs Stirling
to her one day. "I mind him well--the awfulest laddie for liking his
own way that ever was heard tell of! You see, being the only one left
to her, his mother thought of him first always, till he could hardly do
otherwise than think first of himself; and a sore heart he gave her many
a time. There's a wonderful difference now. It must just be that,"
added she, meditatively. "`A new heart will I give you, and a right
spirit will I put within you.' Lilias, my dear, he's a changed man."

A bright colour flashed into Lilias's face, and tears started in her
eyes.

"I am sure of it! We may be poor and sick and sorrowful again, but the
worst of my aunt's troubles can never come back to her more."

He was very kind to his young cousins, partly because he wished to repay
the love and devotion which had brightened so many of his mother's dark
days, but chiefly because he soon loved them dearly for their own sakes.
Lilias he always treated with a respect and deference which, but for
the gentle dignity with which his kindness was received by her, might
have seemed a little out of place offered to one still such a child.

With Archie he was different. The gravity and reserve which seemed to
have become habitual to Hugh Blair in his intercourse with others never
showed itself to him. The frank, open nature of the lad seemed to act
as a charm upon him. The perfect simplicity of his character, the
earnestness with which he strove first of all to do right, filled his
cousin with wonder, and oftentimes awoke within him bitter regret at the
remembrance of what his own youth had been; and a living lesson did the
unconscious lad become to him many a time.

No one rejoiced more heartily than did Mrs Stirling at the coming home
of Hugh Blair and the consequent change of circumstances to his mother
and his little cousins; but her joy was expressed in her own fashion.
One might have supposed that, in her opinion, some great calamity had
befallen them, so dismal were her prophecies concerning them.

"It's true you have borne adversity well, and that is in a measure a
preparation for the well-bearing of prosperity. But there's no telling.
The heart is deceitful, and it is no easy to carry a full cup. You'll
need grace, Lilias, my dear. And you'll dou