nce of his own entire faith--"Thy will be
done."

"But what ought we to do?" said the Edinburg writer, when, having
quitted, not unmoved, the melancholy nursery, he led the way to the
scarcely less dreary dining-room, where the two handsome, bright-looking
portraits of the late earl and countess still smiled down from the wall
--giving Mr. Cardross a start, and making him recall, as if the
intervening six weeks had been all a dream, the last day he and Mr.
Menteith dined together at that hospitable table. They stole a look at
one another, but, with true Scotch reticence, neither exchanged a word.
Yet perhaps each respected the other the more, both for the feeling and
for its instant repression.

"Whatever we decide to do, ought to be decided now," said Dr. Hamilton,
"for I must be in Edinburg tomorrow. And, besides, it is a case in
which no medical skill is of much avail, if any; Nature must struggle
through--or yield, which I can not help thinking would be the best
ending. In Sparta, now, this poor child would have been exposed on
Mount--what was the place? to be saved by any opportune death from
the still greater misfortune of living."

"But that would have been murder--sheer murder," earnestly replied
the minister. "And we are not Spartans, but Christians, to whom the
body is not every thing, and who believe that God can work out His
wonderful will, if He chooses, through the meanest means--through the
saddest tragedies and direst misfortunes. In one sense, Dr. Hamilton,
there is no such thing as evil--that is, there is no actual evil in
the world except sin."

"There is plenty of that, alas!" said Mr. Menteith. "But as to the
child, I wished you to see it--both of you together--if only to
bear evidence as to its present condition. For the late earl, in his
will, executed, by a most providential chance, the last time I was here,
appointed me sole guardian and trustee to a possible widow or child. On
me, therefore, depends the charge of this poor infant--the sole bar
between those penniless, grasping, altogether discreditable Bruces, and
the large property of Cairnforth. You see my position, gentlemen?"

It was not an easy one, and no wonder the honest man looked much
troubled.

"I need not say that I never sought it--never thought it possible it
would really fall to my lot; but it has fallen, and I must discharge it
to the best of my ability. You see what the earl is--born alive,
anyhow--though we c