ss, and stopped. Yet at that moment a hearty
trill of thoroughly childish laughter seemed to rebuke the regrets of
both fathers.

"That child certainly has the sweetest nature--the most remarkable
faculty for enjoying other people's enjoyments, in which he himself can
never share."

"Yes, it was always so, from the time he was a mere infant. Dr.
Hamilton often noticed it, and said it was a good omen."

"I believe so," rejoined Mr. Cardross, earnestly. "I feel sure that if
Lord Cairnforth lives, he will neither have a useless nor an unhappy
life."

"Let us hope not. And yet--poor little fellow!--to be the last
Earl of Cairnforth, and to be--such as he is!"

"He is what God made him, what God willed him to be," said the minister,
solemnly. "We know not why it should be so; we only know that it is,
and we can not alter it. We can not remove from him his heavy cross,
but I think we can help him to bear it."

"You are a good man, Mr. Cardross," replied the Edinburg writer,
huskily, as he rose from his seat, and declining another glass of the
claret, of which, under some shallow pretext, he had sent a supply into
the minister's empty cellar, he crossed the grass-plot, and spent the
rest of the evening beside his ward and Helen.

Chapter 5

Days, months, and years slip smoothly by on the shores of Loch Beg.
Even now, though the cruelly advancing finger of Civilization has
touched it, dotted it with genteel villas on either side, plowed it with
smoky steam boats, and will shortly frighten the innocent fishes by
dropping a marine telegraph wire across the mouth of the loch, it is a
peaceful place still. But when the last Earl of Cairnforth was a child
it was all peace. In summertime a few stray tourists would wander past
it, wondering at its beauty; but in winter it had hardly any
communication with the outer world. The Manse, the Castle, and the
clachan, with a few outlying farm-houses, comprised the whole of the
Cairnforth; and the little peninsula, surrounded on three sides by
water, and on the fourth by hills, was sufficiently impregnable and
isolated to cause existence to flow on there very quietly, in what
townspeople call dullness, and country people repose.

For, whatever repose there may be in country life--real country--
there is certainly no monotony. The perpetual change of seasons,
varying the aspect of the outside world every month, every week--nay,
almost every day, is a continual in