Helen took it down and drew with a pencil the limits of the Cairnforth estates. They extended along the whole peninsula, and far up into the main land. "There, Lord Cairnforth, every bit of this is yours." "To do exactly what I like with?" "Certainly." "Helen, it is an awfully serious thing." Helen was silent. "How strange!" He continued, after a pause. "And this was really all mine from the very hour of my birth?" "Yes." "And when I come of age I shall have to take my property into my own hands, and manage it just as I choose, or as I can?" "Of course you will; and I think you can do it, if you try." For it was not the first time that Helen had pondered over these things, since, being neither learned nor poetical, worldly-minded nor selfish, in her silent hours her mind generally wandered to the practical concerns of other people, and especially of those she loved. "'Try' ought to be the motto of the Cardross arms--of yours certainly," said Lord Cairnforth, smiling. "I should like to assume it on mine, instead of my own 'Virtute et fide,' which is of little use to me. How can I--I--be brave or faithful?" "You can be both--and you will," said Helen, softly. Years from that day she remembered what she had said, and how true it was. A little while afterward, while the minister still remained buried in his beloved books, Lord Carinforth recurred again to Dougal Mac Dougal. "The old fellow was right. If I am ever to have 'ony wits ava,' I ought to have them by this time. I am nearly twenty-one. Any other young man would have been a man long ago. And I will be a man--why should I not? True manliness is not solely outside. I dare say you could find many a fool and a coward six feet high." "Yes," answered Helen, all she could find to say. "And if I have nothing else, I have brains--quite as good brains, I think, as my neighbors. They can not say of me now that I'm 'no a' there.' Nay, Helen, don't look so fierce; they meant me no ill; it was but natural. Yes, God has left me something to be thankful for." The earl lifted his head--the only part of his frame which he could move freely, and his eyes flashed under his broad brows. Thoroughly manly brows they were, wherein any acute observer might trace that clear sound sense, active energy, and indomitable perseverance which make the real man, and lacking which the "brawest" young follow alive is a mere body--and animal wanting the soul.