"No remarks, Malcolm," interrupted the Earl, with unwonted sharpness. "Break the seal, and lay the letter so that I can read it. Then you may go."

But, when his servant had gone, he closed his eyes, in utter hopelessness of dejection, for he saw how completely

Helen had been deceived.

Her letter ran thus-her poor, innocent

letter dated

ever so long ago:- indeed

the time when she had told her father

"My dear Friend,

"I am very busy; but have

striven hard to find an hour in which to

write to you, for I do not think people

forget their friends because they have

gotten other people to be mindful of, too. I think a good and happy love only makes other loves feel closer and dearer.

I

am sure I have been greeting like a bairn, twenty times a-day, ever since I knew I was to be married, whenever I called to mind you and my dear father. You will be very good to him while I am away? but I need not ask you that. Six months, he says-I mean Captain Bruce-will, according to the Edinburgh doctor's advice, set up his

he travels about in

health entirely, if he

a warm climate.

And, therefore, by June,

need not ask you sent me word SO yourself. He had nobody to take care of him nobody in the world but me. His sisters are gay, lively girls, he says and he has been so long abroad that they are almost strangers. He tells me,

I might as well send him away to die

at once, unless I went with him

wife. So I go.

as his

"I hope he will come home quite strong and well, and able to begin building our

cottage on that wee bit of ground

1

on the hill-side above Cairnforth, which

you have promised to give to him. I

VOL. II.

E

am inexpressibly happy about it.

We

shall all live so cheerily together and

meet every day - the Castle, the Manse, and the Cottage. When I think of that, and of my coming back, I am almost comforted for this sad going away - leaving

my dear father, and the boys, and you.

"Papa has been so

do not know. I shall

nor will Ernest.

good to me, you

never forget it

Ernest thought he would

stand in the way of our marriage, but he did not. He said I must choose for myself, as he had done when he married my dearest mother; that I had been a good

girl to him and a good daughter would

make a good wife; also that a good wife would not cease to be a good daughter because she was married- especially living

close at hand, as we shall always live :

Ernest has promised it.

"Thus, you see, nobody I love will lose me at all nor shall I forget them— I should hate myself if it were possible. I shall be none the less a daughter to my father none the less а friend to

you. I will never, never forget you, my dear!" (here the writing became blurred, as if large drops had fallen on the paper while she wrote.) "It is twelve o'clock, and I must bid you good night—and God bless you ever and ever! The last time I sign my dear old name (except once) is thus to you.

"Your faithful and loving friend.

"HELEN CARDROSS."