the minister's feelings
were of such a mingled kind that he shrank from these demonstrations of
joy, and rather repressed the warm loyalty which was springing up every
where toward the young man. But after taking counsel with Helen, who
saw into things a little deeper than he did, Mr. Cardross decided that
it was better all should be done exactly as if the present lord were not
different from his forefathers, and that he should be helped both to act
and to feel as like other people as possible.

Therefore, on a bright June morning, as bright as that of his sad
birth-day and his mother's death-day, twenty-one years before, the earl
awoke to the sound of music playing--if the national pipes of the
peninsula could be called music--underneath his window, and heard his
good neighbors from the clachan, young and old, men, women, and bairns,
uniting their voices in one hearty shout, wishing "A lang life and a
merry ane" to the Earl of Cairnforth.

Whether or not the young man's heart echoed the wish, who could tell?
It was among the solemn secrets which every human soul has to keep and
ever must keep between itself and its Maker.

Very soon the earl appeared out of doors, wheeling himself along the
terrace in his little chair, answering smilingly the congratulations of
every body, and evidently enjoying the pleasant morning, the sunshine,
and the scent of the flowers in what was still called "The countess's
garden." People notice afterward how very like he looked that day to
his beautiful mother; and many a mother out of the clachan, who
remembered the lady's face still, and how, during her few brief months
of married happiness and hope, she used to stop her pretty pony-carriage
to notice every poor woman's baby she chanced to pass--many of these
now regarded pitifully and tenderly her only son, the last heir of the
last Countess of Cairnfoth.

Yet he certainly enjoyed himself, there could be no doubt of it; and
when, later in the day, he discovered a conspiracy between the Castle,
the Manse, and the clachan, which resulted in a grand feast on the lawn,
he was highly delighted.

"All this for me!" he cried, almost childish in his pleasure. "How good
every body is to me!"

And he insisted on mixing with the little crowd, and seeing them sit
down to their banquet, which they ate as if they had never eaten in
their lives before, and drank--as Highlanders can drink, and
Highlanders alone. But, before the whisky began