At twelve o’clock Helen came in with her father’s lunch—­a foaming glass of new milk, warm from the cow.  The little earl looked at it with eager eyes.

“Will I bring you one too?” said Helen.

“Oh—­thank you; I am so thirsty.  And, please, would you move me a little—­just a very little; I don’t often sit so long in one position.  It won’t trouble you very much, will it?”

“Not at all, if you will only show me how,” stammered Helen, turning hot and red.  But, shaking off her hesitation, she lifted up the poor child tenderly and carefully, shook his pillows and “sorted” him according to her own untranslatable Scotch word, then went quickly out of the room to compose herself, for she had done it all, trembling exceedingly the while.  And yet, somehow, a feeling of great tenderness—­tenderer than even she had felt successively toward her own baby brothers, had grown up in her heart toward him, taking away every possible feeling of repulsion on account of his deformity.

She brought back the glass of creamy milk and a bit of oatcake, and laid them beside the earl.  He regarded them wistfully.

“How nice the milk looks!  I am so tired—­and so thirsty.  Please—­ would you give me some?  Just hold the glass, that’s all, and I can manage.”

Helen held it to his lips—­the first time she ever did so, but not the last by many.  Years and years from then, when she herself was quite an old woman, she remembered, giving him that drink of milk, and how, afterward, two large soft eyes were turned upon hers so lovingly, so gratefully, as if the poor cripple had drank in something besides milk —–­the sweet draught of human affection, not dried up even to such heavily afflicted ones as he.

“Are the lessons all done for to-day, papa?” said she, noticing that, eager as it was, the little face looked very wan and wearied, but also noticing with delight that her father’s expression was brighter and more interested than it had been this long time.

“Done, Helen?  Well, if my pupil is tired, certainly.”

“But I’m not tired, sir.”

Helen shook her motherly head:  “Quite enough for to-day.  You may come back again to-morrow.”

He did come back.  Day after day, in fair weather or foul, big Malcolm was to be seen stepping with his free Highland step—­Malcolm was a lissome, handsome young fellow—­across the Manse garden, carrying that small frail burden, which all the inhabitants of the clachan had ceased to stare at, and to which they all raised their bonnets or touched their shaggy forelocks.  “It’s the wee earl, ye ken,” and one and all treated with the utmost respect the tiny figure wrapped in a plaid, so that nothing was visible except a small child’s face, which always smiled at sight of other children.

It was surprising in how few days the clachan, and indeed the whole neighborhood, grew accustomed to the appearance of the earl and his sad story.  Perhaps this was partly due to Helen and Mr. Cardross, who, seeing no longer any occasion for mystery, indeed regretting a little that any mystery had ever been made about the matter, took every opportunity of telling every body who inquired the whole facts of the case.