the country grow profusely, even down to within a few feet of high-water
mark, on the tidal shores of the lochs. Their large, round, smiling
faces, so irresistibly suggestive of baby smiles at sight of them, and
baby fingers clutching at them, touched the heart of the good minister,
who had left two small creatures of his own--a "bit girlie" of five,
and a two-year-old boy--playing on his grass-plot at home with some
toys of the countess's giving: she had always been exceedingly kind to
the Manse children.

He thought of her, lying dead; and then of her poor little motherless
and fatherless baby, whom, if she had any consciousness in her
death-hour, it must have been a sore pang to her to leave behind. And
the tears gathered again and again in the good man's eyes, shutting out
from his vision all the beauty of the spring.

He reached the grand Italian portico, built by some former earl with a
taste for that style, and yet harmonizing well with the smooth lawn,
bounded by a circle of magnificent trees, through which came glimpses of
the glittering loch. The great doors used almost always to stand open,
and the windows were rarely closed--the countess like sunshine and
fresh air, but now all was shut up and silent, and not a soul was to be
seen about the place.

Mr. Cardross sighed, and walked round to the other side of the castle,
where was my lady's flower-garden, or what was to be made into one.
Then he entered by French windows, from a terrace overlooking it, my
lord's library, also incomplete. For the earl, who was by no means a
bookish man, had only built that room since his marriage, to please his
wife, whom perhaps he loved all the better that she was so exceedingly
unlike himself. Now both were away--their short dream of married