But that instant was heard from the inner room a cry, the like of which Lord Cairnforth had never heard before--the sharp, waking cry of a very young infant.
In a moment Helen started up--her whole expression changed; and when, after a short disappearance, she re-entered the room with her child, who had dropped contentedly asleep again, nestling to her bosom, she was perfectly transformed.

No longer the plain, almost elderly woman; she had in her poor worn face the look--which makes any face young, nay, lovely--the mother's look.

Fate had not been altogether cruel to her; it had given her a child.
"Isn't he a bonnie bairn ?" she whispered, as once again she knelt down by Lord Cairnforth's chair, and brought the little face down so that he could see it and touch it.

He did touch it with his feeble fingers-- the small soft cheek--the first baby-cheek he had ever beheld.
"It is a bonnie bairn, as you say; God bless it!" which, as she afterward told him, was the first blessing ever breathed over the child.
"What is its name:" he asked by-and-by, seeing she expected more notice taken of it.
"Alexander Cardross--after my father.

My son is a born Scotsman too -- an Edinburg laddie.