And, above all, to teach a boy unto whom learning seemed a pleasure rather than a torment, a favor instead of a punishment, was such an exceeding and novel delight to the good minister, that soon he forgot the crippled figure--the helpless hands that sometimes with fingers, sometimes even with teeth, painfully guided the ingeniously cut forked stick, and the thin face that only too often turned white and weary, but quickly looked up, as if struggling against weakness, and concentrating all attention on the work that was to be done.
At twelve o'clock Helen came in with her father's lunch--a foaming glass of new milk, warm from the cow.

The little earl looked at it with eager eyes.
"Will I bring you one too ?" said Helen.
"Oh--thank you; I am so thirsty.

And, please, would you move me a little--just a very little; I don't often sit so long in one position.

It won't trouble you very much, will it ?" "Not at all, if you will only show me how," stammered Helen, turning hot and red.

But, shaking off her hesitation, she lifted up the poor child tenderly and carefully, shook his pillows and "sorted" him according to her own untranslatable Scotch word, then went quickly out of the room to compose herself, for she had done it all, trembling exceedingly the while.