ampbell. By the time Captain Bruce
returned from his ride, the guest was startled by the news that his host
meant to quit Cairnforth at daylight the next morning, which appeared to
disconcert the captain exceedingly.

"I would volunteer to accompany you, cousin," said he, after expressing
his extreme surprise and regret, "but the winds of Edinburg are ruin to
my weak lungs, which the air here suits so well. So I must prepare to
quit pleasant Cairnforth, where I have received so much kindness, and
which I have grown to regard almost like home--the nearest approach
to home that in my sad, wandering life I ever knew."

There was an unmistakable regret in the young man's tone which, in spite
of his own trouble, went to the earl's good heart.

"Why should you leave at all?" said he. "Why not remain here and await
my return, which can not be long delayed--two months at most--even
counting my slow traveling? I will give you something to do meanwhile:
I will make you viceroy of Cairnforth during my absence--that is,
under Miss Cardross, who alone knows all the parish affairs--and
mine. Will you accept the office?"

"Under Miss Cardross?" Captain Bruce laughed, but did not seem quite to
relish it. However, he expressed much gratitude at having been thought
worthy of the earl's confidence.

"Don't be humble, my good cousin and friend. If I did not trust you,
and like you, I should never think of asking you to stay. Mr. Cardross
--Helen--what do you say to my plan"?

Both gave a cordial assent, as was indeed certain. Nothing ill was
known of Captain Bruce, and nothing noticed in him unlikeable, or
unworthy of liking. And even as to his family, who wrote to him
constantly, and whose letters he often showed, there had appeared
sufficient evidence in their favor to counterbalance much of the
suspicions against them, so that the earl was glad he had leaned to the
charitable side in making his cousin welcome to Cairnforth; glad, too,
that he could atone by warm confidence and extra kindness for what now
seemed too long a neglect of those who were really his nearest kith and
kin.

Mr. Cardross also; any prejudices he had from his knowledge of the late
earl's troubles with the Bruces were long ago dispersed. And Helen was
too innocent herself ever to have had a prejudice at all. She said,
when appealed to pointedly by the earl, as he now often appealed to her
in many things, that she thought the scheme both pleasant