NOBLE LIFE Author:Dinah Maria Mulock Craik Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: It was on a June day ten years after that bright June day when the minister of Cairnforth had walked with such a sad heart up to Cairnforth Castle, and seen f... more »or the first time its unconscious heir the poor little orphan baby who in such apparent mockery was called "the Earl." The woods, the hills, the loch, looked exactly the same nature never changes. As Mr. Cardross walked up to the Castle once more, the first time for many months, in accordance with a request of Mr. Menteith's, who had written to say the Earl was coming home he could hardly believe it was ten years since that sad week when the baby-heir was born, and the Countess's funeral had passed out from that now long-closed door. Mr. Cardross's step was heavier and his face sadder now than then. He who had so often sympathised with others' sorrows, had had to suffer patiently his own. From the Manse gate as from that of the Castle, the mother and mistress had been carried never to return. A new Helen only fifteen years old was trying vainly to replace to father and brothers her who was as Mr. Cardross still touchingly put it " away." But though his grief was more than a year old, the minister mourned still. His was one of those quiet natures which make no show, and trouble no one, yet in which sorrow goes deep down, and grows intothe heart, as it were, becoming a part of existence, until existence itself shall cease. It did not, however, hinder him from doing all his ordinary duties perhaps with even closer persistence, as he felt himself sinking into that indifference to outside things, which is the inevitable result of a heavy loss upon any gentle nature. The fierce rebel against it: the impetuous and impatient throw it off, but the feeble and tender souls make no sign, only quietly pas...« less