So things went on, without any other variety than an occasional visit
from Mr. Menteith or Dr. Hamilton, for seven years, during which the
minister's pupil had acquired every possible learning that his teacher
could give, and was fast becoming less a scholar than an equal companion
and friend--so familiar and dear, that Mr. Cardross, like all who
knew him, had long since almost forgotten that the earl was--what he
was. It seemed the most natural thing in the world that he should sit
there in his little chair, doing nothing; absolutely passive to all
physical things; but interested in every thing and every body, and,
whether at the Manse or the Castle, as completely one of the circle as
if he took the most active part therein. Consulted by one, appealed to
by another, joked by a third--he was ever ready with a joke--it
was only when strangers happened to see him, and were startled by the
sight, that his own immediate friends recognized how different he was
from other people.

It was one day when he was about nineteen that Helen, coming in to see
him with a message from her father, who wanted to speak to him about
some parish matters, found Lord Cairnforth deeply meditating over a
letter. He slipped it aside, however, and it was not until the whole
parish question had been discussed and settled, as somehow he and Helen
very often did settle the whole affairs of the parish between them, that
he brought it out again, fidgeting it out of his pocket with his poor
fingers, which seemed a little more helpless than usual.

"Helen, I wish you would read that, and tell me what you think about
it"?

It was a letter somewhat painful to read, with the earl sitting by and
watching her, but Helen had long learned never to shrink from these sort