"I do not quite comprehend you. There might have been difficulties as to the succession, but are they not all solved by the birth of a healthy, living heir--whom we must cordially hope will long continue to live?" "I hardly know if we ought to hope it," said the lawyer, very seriously. "But we must 'keep a calm sough' on that matter for the present--so far, at least, Dr. Hamilton and I have determined--in order to prevent the Bruces from getting wind of it. Now, then, will you come and see the earl?" "The earl!" re-echoed Mr. Cardross, with a start; then recollected himself, and sighed to think how one goes and another comes, and all the world moves on as before--passing, generation after generation, into the awful shadow which no eye except that of faith can penetrate. Life is a little, little day--hardly longer, in the end, for the man in his prime than for the infant of an hour's span. And the minister, who was of meditative mood, thought to himself much as a poet half a century later put into words--thoughts common to all men, but which only such a man and such a poet could have crystallized into four such perfect lines: "Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: Thou madest man, he knows not why; He thinks he was not made to die, And Thou hast made him--Thou are just." Thus musing, Mr. Cardross followed up stairs toward the magnificent nursery, which had been prepared months before, with a loving eagerness of anticipation, and a merciful blindness to futurity, for the expected heir of the Earls of Cairnforth. For, as before said, the only hope of the lineal continuance of the race was in this one child. It lay in a cradle resplendent with white satin hangings and lace curtains, and beside it sat the nurse--a mere girl, but a widow already--Neil Campbell's widow, whose first child had been born only two days after her husband was drowned. Mr. Cardross knew that she had been suddenly sent for out of the clachan, the countess having, with her dying breath, desired that this young woman, whose circumstances were so like her own, should be taken as wet-nurse to the new-born baby. So, in her widow's weeds, grave and sad, but very sweet-looking--she had been a servant at the Castle, and was a rather superior young woman --Janet Campbell took her place beside her charge with an expression in her face as if she felt it was a charge left her by her lost mistress, which must be kept solemnly to the end of her days--as it was. The minister shook hands with her silently--she had gone through sore affliction--but the lawyer addressed her in his quick, sharp, business tone, under which he often disguised more emotion than he liked to show. "You have not been dressing the child? Dr. Hamilton told you not to attempt it." "Na, na, sir, I didna try," answered Janet, sadly and gently.