Not until he was gone did they recognize how much they missed him: in the Manse parlor where "the earl's chair" took its regular place--in the pretty Manse garden, where its wheels had made in the gravel walks deep marks which Helen could not bear to have erased--in his pew at the kirk, where the minister had learned to look Sunday after Sunday for that earnest, listening face. Mr. Cardross, too, found it dull no longer to have his walk up to the Castle, and his hour or two's rest in the yet unfinished library, which he and Lord Cairnforth had already begun to consult about, and where the earl was always to be found, sitting at his little table with his books about him, and Malcolm lurking within call, or else placed contentedly by the French window, looking out upon that blaze of beauty into which the countess's flower-garden had grown. How little they had thought--the young father and mother, cut off in the midst of their plans, that their poor child would one day so keenly enjoy them all, and have such sore need for these or any other simple and innocent enjoyments. "Papa, how we do miss him!" said Helen one day as she walked with her father through the Cairnforth woods. "Who would have thought it when he first came here only a few years ago?" "Who would indeed?" said the minister, remembering a certain walk he had taken through these very paths nineteen years before, when he had wondered why providence had sent the poor babe into the world at all, and thought how far, far happier it would have been lying dead on its dead mother's bosom--that beautiful young mother, whose placid face upon the white satin pillows of her coffin Mr. Cardross yet vividly recalled; for he saw it often reflected in the living face of the son, whom, happily, she had died without beholding. "That was a wise saying of King David's, 'Let me fall into the hands of the Lord, and not into the hands of men,'" mused Mr. Cardross, who had just been hearing from Mr. Mentieth a long story of his perplexities with "those Bruces," and had also had lately a few domestic dissensions in his own parish, which did quarrel among itself occasionally, and always brought its quarrels to be settled by the minister. "It is a strange thing, Helen, my dear, what wonderful peace there often is in great misfortunes. They are quite different from the petty miseries which people make for themselves." "I suppose so. But do you think, papa, that any good will come out of the London journey?" "I can not tell; still, it was right to try. You yourself said it was right to try." "Yes;" and then, seeing it was done now, the practical, brave Helen stilled her uncertainties and let the matter rest.