“No.”

“Yet,” continued Mr. Menteith, after a long pause, “Dr. Hamilton thinks he may live many years.  Strange to say, his constitution is healthy and sound, and his sweet, placid nature—­his mother’s own nature (isn’t he very like her sometimes?)—­gives him so much advantage in struggling through every ailment.  If he can be made happy, as you and Helen will, I doubt not, be able to make him, and kept strictly to a wholesome, natural country life here, it is not impossible he may live to enter upon his property.  And then—­for the future, God knows!”

“It is well for us,” replied the minister, gravely, “That He does know —­every thing.”

“I suppose it is.”

And then for another hour the two good men—­one living in the world and the other out of it—­both fathers of families, carrying their own burden of cares, and having gone through their own personal sorrows each in his day, talked over, the minutest degree, the present, and, so far as they could divine it, the future of this poor boy, who, through so strange a combination of circumstances, had been left entirely to their charge.

“It is a most responsible charge, Mr. Cardross, and I feel almost selfish in shifting it so much from my own shoulders upon yours.”

“I am willing to undertake it.  Perhaps it may do me good,” returned the minister, with a slight sigh.

“And you will give him the best education you can—­your own, in short, which is more than sufficient for Lord Cairnforth; certainly more than the last earl had, or his father either.”

“Possibly,” said Mr. Cardross, who remembered both—­stalwart, active, courtly lords of the soil, great at field-sports and festivities, but not over given to study.  “No, the present earl does not take after his progenitors in any way.  You should just see him, Mr. Menteith, over his Virgil; and I have promised to begin Homer with him tomorrow.  It does one’s heart good to see a boy so fond of his books,” added the minister, warming up into an enthusiasm which delighted the other extremely.

“Yes, I think my plan was right,” said he, rubbing his hands.  “It will work well on both sides.  There could not be found any where a better tutor than yourself for the earl.  He never can go much into the world; he may not even live to be of age; still, as long as he does live, his life ought to be made as pleasant—­I mean, as little painful to him as possible.  And he ought to be fitted, in case he should live, for as many years as he can fulfill of the duties of his position; its enjoyments, alas! he will never know.”

“I am not so sure of that,” replied Mr. Cardross.  “He loves books; he may turn out a thoroughly educated and accomplished student—­perhaps even a man of letters.  To have a thirst for knowledge, and unlimited means to gratify it, is not such a bad thing.  Why,” continued the minister, glancing round on his own poorly-furnished shelves, where every book was bought almost at the sacrifice of a meal, “he will be rich enough to stock from end to end that wilderness of shelves in the half-finished Castle library.  How pleasant that must be!”