the fittest person to break any terrible tidings. So it ought to be.
Who but the messenger of God should know best how to communicate His
awful will, as expressed in great visitations of Calamity? In this case
no one could have been more suited for his solemn office than Mr.
Cardross. He went up to the Castle door, as he had done to that of many
a cottage bearing the same solemn message of sudden death, to which
there could be but one answer--"Thy will be done."

But the particulars of that terrible interview, in which he had to tell
the countess what already her own eyes had witnessed--though they
refused to believe the truth--the minister never repeated to any
creature except his wife. And afterward, during the four weeks that
Lady Cairnforth survived her husband, he was the only person, beyond her
necessary attendants, who saw her until she died.

The day after her death he was suddenly summoned to the castle by Mr.
Menteith, an Edinburg writer to the signet, and confidential agent, or
factor, as the office called in Scotland, to the late earl.

"They'll be sending for you to baptize the child. It's early--but
the pair bit thing may be delicate, and they may want it done at once,
before Mr. Menteith returns to Edinburg."

"Maybe so, Helen; so do not expect me back till you see me."

Thus saying, the minister quitted his sunshiny manse garden, where he
was working peacefully among his raspberry-bushes, with his wife looking
on, and walked, in meditative mood, through the Cairnforth woods, now
blue with hyacinths in their bosky shadows, and in every nook and corner
starred with great clusters of yellow primroses, which in this part of