The earl gave no answer to his good nurse's gossip. He contented
himself with making all arrangements for poor Helen's comfort, and
taking care that she should be supplied with every luxury befitting not
alone Captain Bruce's wife and Mr. Cardross's daughter, but the "cousin"
of the Earl of Cairnforth. And now, whenever he spoke of her, it was
invariably and punctiliously as "my cousin."
The baby too--Mrs. Campbell's truly feminine soul was exalted to
infinte delight and pride at being employed by the earl to procure the
most magnificent stock of baby clothes that Edinburg could supply. No
young heir to a peerage could be appareled more splendidly than was,
within a few days, Helen's boy. He was the admiration of the whole
hotel; and when his mother made some weak resistance, she received a
gentle message to the effect that the Earl of Cairnforth begged, as a
special favor, to be allowed to do exactly as he liked with his little
"cousin".
And every morning, punctual to the hour, the earl had himself taken up
stairs into the infantile kingdom of which Mrs. Campbell was installed
once more as head nurse, where he would sit watching with an amused
curiosity, that was not without its pathos, the little creature so
lately come into the world--to him, unfamiliar with babies, such a
wondrous mystery.
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