Such was the state in which Mrs. Charles Walkinshaw found Mrs. Eadie at their first acquaintance; and the disappointments and shadows which had fallen on the hopes of her own youth, soon led to an intimate and sympathetic friendship between them, the influence of which contributed at once to alleviate their reciprocal griefs, and to have the effect of reviving, in some degree, the withered affections of the minister. The gradual and irremediable progress of the consumption which preyed on his son, soon, however, claimed from that gentle and excellent man efforts of higher fortitude than he had before exerted, and from that inward exercise, and the sympathy which he felt for his wife’s maternal solicitude, Mrs. Walkinshaw had the satisfaction, in the course of a year, to see their mutual confidence and cordiality restored. But in the same period the boy died; and though the long foreseen event deeply affected his parents, it proved a fortunate occurrence to the widow. For the minister, to withdraw his reflections from the contemplation of his childless state, undertook the education of James, and Mrs. Eadie, partly from the same motives, but chiefly to enjoy the society of her friend, proposed to unite with her in the education of Mary. ‘We cannot tell,’ said she to Mrs. Walkinshaw, ‘what her lot may be; but let us do our best to prepare her for the world, and leave her fortunes, as they ever must be, in the hands of Providence. The penury and obscurity of her present condition ought to be no objection to bestowing on her all the accomplishments we have it in our power to give. How little likely was it, in my father’s time, that I should have been in this comparative poverty, and yet, but for those acquirements, which were studied for brighter prospects, how dark and sad would often have been my residence in this sequestered village!’ CHAPTER LX In the meantime, the fortunes of George, whom we now regard as the third Laird of Grippy, continued to flourish. The estate rose in value, and his mercantile circumstances improved; but still the infirmities of his wife’s health remained the same, and the want of a male heir was a craving void in his bosom, that no prosperity could supply. The reflections, connected with this subject, were rendered the more afflicting, by the consideration, that, in the event of dying without a son, the estate would pass from his daughter to James, the son of his brother Charles--and the only consolation that he had to balance this was a hope that, perhaps, in time he might be able to bring to pass a marriage between them. Accordingly, after a suspension of intercourse for several years, actuated by a perspective design of this kind, he, one afternoon, made his appearance in his own carriage, with his lady and daughter, at the door of Mrs. Charles’ humble dwelling, in the village of Camrachle.