he honest man sighed as he looked from Mr. Cardross's dining-room
window across the Manse garden, where, under a shady tree, was placed
the earl's little wheel-chair, which was an occasional substitute for
Malcolm's arms. In it he sat, with a book on his lap, and with the
aspect of entire content which was so very touching. Helen sat beside
him on the grass, sewing--she was always sewing; and, indeed, she had
need, if her needle were to keep pace with its requirements in the large
family of boys.

"That's a good girl of yours, and his lordship seems to have taken to
her amazingly. I am very glad, for he had no feminine company at all
except Mrs. Campbell, and, good as she is, she isn't quite the thing--
not exactly a lady, you see. Eh, Mr. Cardross--what a lady his
mother was! We'll never again see the like of the poor countess, nor,
in all human probability, will we ever again see another Countess of
Cairnforth.

"No."

"Yet," continued Mr. Menteith, after a long pause, "Dr. Hamilton thinks
he may live many years. Strange to say, his constitution is healthy and
sound, and his sweet, placid nature--his mother's own nature (isn't
he very like her sometimes?)--gives him so much advantage in
struggling through every ailment. If he can be made happy, as you and
Helen will, I doubt not, be able to make him, and kept strictly to a
wholesome, natural country life here, it is not impossible he may live
to enter upon his property. And then--for the future, God knows!"

"It is well for us," replied the minister, gravely, "That He does know
--every thing."

"I suppose it is."

And then for another hour the two good men--one living in the world
and the other out of it--both fathers of families, carrying their own
burden of cares, and having gone through their own personal sorrows each
in his day, talked over, the minutest degree, the present, and, so far
as they could divine it, the future of this poor boy, who, through so
strange a combination of circumstances, had been left entirely to their
charge.

"It is a most responsible charge, Mr. Cardross, and I feel almost
selfish in shifting it so much from my own shoulders upon yours."

"I am willing to undertake it. Perhaps it may do me good," returned the
minister, with a slight sigh.

"And you will give him the best education you can--your own, in
short, which is more than sufficient for Lord Cairnforth; certainly more
than the last earl had, or his father eith