But at length her mother fell sick, and for many a weary month Helen watched by the sufferer’s bed-side, a ministering angel. During this illness she noticed that, at times, her father would seem lost in thought, as if something weighed heavily on his mind; but Helen regarded it little, attributing it to his suspense at her mother’s danger, for he loved both her and his child with an intensity seemingly in contradiction to his hard, unbending character, but which, in truth, was the result of his total seclusion from the world; for the sympathies thus shut out from others lavished themselves wholly on his wife and daughter. At length, Mrs. Græme died, and for many days it seemed as if that strong man’s heart would break, while Helen wept in silence, though not less uncontrollably. Her father was now sterner than ever, though not to her. He was more alone, often indulged in fits of musing, and was absent at Edinburgh for some days—an unusual occurrence—and when he came back it was as Sir Roland Græme, a title which men said he had purchased by selling himself to the Court. Helen heard these rumors—which, however, came to her ears in whispers, and which at first she could not believe—with sorrow and despair of heart; but no word of reproof broke from her lips. Her sufferings were endured silently; but so deep was her grief, that she pined away, seeming to all eyes a being lent awhile to earth, and gradually exhaling to heaven. Her father, thinking her sorrow sprung wholly from her mother’s death, and wishing, perhaps, that she should be from home when he should first act for the government, sent her to her mother’s native vale, alleging, and doubtless hoping, that change of air would restore her to health. It were doing him no more than justice to say, that his paternal love was fully aroused to Helen’s danger, and that he took the only possible means to keep at his side this dear bud of her who was now in heaven. He forgot how much the little family at the Brae leaned toward the persecuted sect—he forgot the disaffected character of the district into which Helen went—he forgot the danger lest her own feelings should become enlisted in behalf of those against whom he was so soon to draw his sword; remembering only—for was he not a father?—that his child’s health was in danger, and that a residence in the mountain district where she had been born, and where she had spent so many happy years, was the sole chance of saving her life.