But, as before said, she was a mother, and wholly a mother, which blessed fact healed the young widow’s heart better and sooner than any thing else could have done.  Besides, in her case, there was no suspense, no conflict of duties—­all her duties were done.  Had they lasted after her child’s birth the struggle might have been too hard; for mothers have responsibilities as well as wives, and when these conflict, as they do sometimes, God help her who has to choose between them!  But Helen was saved this misfortune.  Providence had taken her destiny out of her own hands, and here she was, free as Helen Cardross of old, in exactly the same position, and going through the same simple round of daily cares and daily avocations which she had done as the minister’s active and helpful daughter.

For as nothing else but the minister’s daughter would she, for the present, be recognized at Cairnforth.  Lord Cairnforth’s intentions toward herself or her son she insisted on keeping wholly secret, except, of course, as regarded that dear and good father.

“I may die,” she said to the earl—­“die before yourself; and if my boy grows up, you may not love him, or he may not deserve your love, in which case you must choose another heir.  No, you shall be bound in no way externally; let all go on as heretofore.  I will have it so.”

And of all Lord Cairnforth’s generosity she would accept of nothing for herself except a small annual sum, which, with her widow’s pension from the East India Company, sufficed to make her independent of her father; but she did not refuse kindness to her boy.

Never was there such a boy.  “Boy” he was called from the first, never “baby;” there was nothing of the baby about him.  Before he was a year old he ruled his mother, grandfather, and Uncle Duncan with a rod of iron.  Nay, the whole village were his slaves.  “Miss Helen’s bairn” was a little king every where.  It might have gone rather hard for the poor wee fellow thus allegorically

   “Wearing on his baby brow the round
   And top of sovereignty”

That dangerous sovereignty—­any human being—­to wield, had there not been at least one person who was able to assume authority over him.

This was, strange to say—­and yet not strange—­the Earl of Cairnforth.

From his earliest babyhood Boy had been accustomed to the sight of the sight of the motionless figure in the moving chair, who never touched him, but always spoke so kindly and looked around so smilingly; whom, he could perceive—­for children are quicker to notice things than we some times think—­his mother and grandfather invariably welcomed with such exceeding pleasure, and treated with never-failing respect and tenderness.  And, as soon as he could crawl, the footboard of the mysterious wheeled chair became to the little man a perfect treasure-house of delight.  Hidden there he found toys, picture-books, “sweeties”—­such as he got nowhere else, and for which, before appropriating them, he was carefully taught to express thanks in his own infantile way, and made to understand fully from whom they came.