Experience had not effaced the first mysterious impression made on the little child's mind by the wheeled chair and its occupant. If there was one person in the world who had power to guide and control this high-spirited lad, it was Lord Cairnforth. And as the latter moved his chair a little round, so that he could more easily look out into the garden and see the graceful figure sauntering among the flower-beds, it was evident by his expression that the earl loved Helen's boy very dearly. "He is a fine fellow, and a good fellow as ever was born, that young man of yours. Still, as I have told you many a time, he would be all the better if he were sent to college." "For his education?" I thought Duncan was fully competent to complete that." "Not altogether. But, for many reasons, I think it would be advisable for him to go from home for a while." "Why? Because his mother spoils him?" The earl smiled, and gave no direct answer. In truth, the harm Helen did her boy was not so much in her "spoiling"--love rarely injures --as in the counteracting weight which she sometimes threw on the other side--in the sudden tight rein which she drew upon his little follies and faults--the painful clashing of two equally strong wills, which sometimes happened between the mother and the son. This was almost inevitable, with Helen's peculiar character. As she sat there, the sun shining on her fair face--still fair; a clear, healthy red and white, though she was over forty--you might trace some harsh lines in it, and see clearly that, save for her exceeding unselfishness and lovingness of disposition, Mrs. Bruce might in middle age have grown into what is termed a "hard" woman; capable of passionate affection, but of equally passionate severity, and prone to exercise both alike upon the beings most precious to her on earth. "I fear it is not a pleasant doctrine to preach to mothers," said Lord Cairnforth; "but, Helen, all boys ought to leave home some time. How else are they to know the world?" "I do not wish my boy to know the world." "But he must. He ought. Remember his life is likely to be a very different one from either yours or mine." "Do not let us think of that," said Helen, uneasily. "My friend, I have been thinking of it ever since he was born--or, at least, ever since he came to Cairnforth. That day seems almost like yesterday, and yet--We are growing quite middle-aged folk, Helen, my dear." Helen sighed. These peaceful, uneventful years, how fast they had slipped by! She began to count them after the only fashion by which she cared to count any thing now. "Yes, Cardross will be a man--actually and legally a man--in little more than two years." "That is just what I was considering. By that time we must come to some decision on a subject which you will never let me speak of; but by-and by, Helen, you must. Do you suppose that your son guesses, or that any body has ever told him, what his future position is to be?"