"Miss Helen's bairn" was a little king every where.

It might have gone rather hard for the poor wee fellow thus allegorically "Wearing on his baby brow the round And top of sovereignty" That dangerous sovereignty--any human being--to wield, had there not been at least one person who was able to assume authority over him.
This was, strange to say--and yet not strange--the Earl of Cairnforth.
From his earliest babyhood Boy had been accustomed to the sight of the sight of the motionless figure in the moving chair, who never touched him, but always spoke so kindly and looked around so smilingly; whom, he could perceive--for children are quicker to notice things than we some times think--his mother and grandfather invariably welcomed with such exceeding pleasure, and treated with never-failing respect and tenderness.

And, as soon as he could crawl, the footboard of the mysterious wheeled chair became to the little man a perfect treasure-house of delight.

Hidden there he found toys, picture-books, "sweeties"-- such as he got nowhere else, and for which, before appropriating them, he was carefully taught to express thanks in his own infantile way, and made to understand fully from whom they came.
"It's bribery, and against my principles," the earl would say, half sadly.

"But, if I did not give him things, how else could Boy learn to love me ?" Helen never answered this, no more than she used answer many similar speeches in the earl's childhood.