ir, in which he
could wheel himself about easily, and liked doing it--"I wonder
whether your father would have taken as much pleasure in his books
thirty years ago. Do you think one could fill up one's whole life with
reading and study?"

"I can not say; I'm not clever myself, you know."

"Oh, but you are--with a sort of practical cleverness. And so is
Alick, in his own way. How happy Alick must be, going out into the
world, with plenty to do all day long! How bright he looked this
morning!"

"He sees only the sunny side of things, he is still no more than a boy."

"Not exactly; he is a year older than I am."

Helen hardly knew what to reply. She guessed so well the current of the
earl's thoughts, which were often her own too, as she watched his absent
or weary looks, though he tried hard to keep his attention to what Mr.
Cardross was reading or discussing. But the distance between twenty and
sixty--the life beginning and the life advancing toward its close--
was frequently apparent; also between an active, original mind,
requiring humanity for its study, and one whose whole bent was among the
dry bones of ancient learning--the difference, in short, between
learning and knowledge--the mere student and the man who only uses
study as a means to the perfecting of his whole nature, his complete
existence as a human being.

All this Helen felt with her quick, feminine instinct, but she did not
clearly understand it, and she could not reason about it at all. She
only answered in a troubled sort of way that she thought every body,
somehow or other, might in time find enough to do--to be happy in
doing--and she was trying to put her meaning into more connected and
intelligible form, when, greatly to her relief, Malcom entered the
library.

Malcolm, being so necessary and close a personal attendant on the earl,
always came and went about his master without any body's noticing him;
but now Helen fancied he was making signals to her or to some one. Lord
Cairnforth detected them.

"Is any thing wrong, Malcolm? Speak out; don't hide things from me. I
am not a child now."

There was just the slightest touch of sharpness in the gentle voice, and
Malcolm did speak out.

"I wadna be troubling ye, my lord, but it's just an auld man, Dougal Mc
Dougal, frae the head o' Loch Mhor--a puir doited body, wha says he
maun hae a bit word wi' your lordship. But I tellt him ye coulna be
fashed wi' the like o' him."

"That