"How good every body is to me!" And he insisted on mixing with the little crowd, and seeing them sit down to their banquet, which they ate as if they had never eaten in their lives before, and drank--as Highlanders can drink, and Highlanders alone.

But, before the whisky began to grow dangerous, the oldest man among the tenantry, who declared that he could remember three Earls of Cairnfoth, proposed the health of this earl, which was received with acclamations long and loud, the pipers playing the family tune of "Montgomerie's Reel," which was chiefly notable for having neither beginning, middle, nor ending.
Lord Cairnforth bowed his head in acknowledgment.
"Ought not somebody to make a little speech of thanks to them ?" whispered he to Helen, who stood close behind his chair.
"You should; and I think you could," was her answer.
"Very well; I will try." And in his poor feeble voice, which trembled much, yet was distinct and clear, he said a few words, very short and simple, to the people near him.

He thanked them for all this merry-making in his honor, and said, "he was exceedingly happy that day." He told them he meant always to reside at Cairnforth, and to carry out all sorts of plans for the improvement of his estates, both for his tenants' benefits and his own.
That he hoped to be both a just and kind landlord, working with and for his tenantry to the utmost of his power.
"That is," he added, with a slight fall of the voice, "to the utmost of those few powers which it has pleased Heaven to give me." After this speech there was a full minute's silence, tender, touching silence, and the arose a cheer, long and loud, such had rarely echoed through the little peninsula on the coming of age of any Lord Cairnforth.
When the tenantry had gone away to light bonfires on the hill-side, and perform many other feats of jubilation, a little dinner-party assembled in the large dining-room, which had been so long disused, for the earl always preferred the library, which was on a level with his bedroom, whence he could wheel himself in and out as he pleased.

To-day the family table was outspread, and the family plate glittered, and the family portraits stared down from the wall as the last Earl of Cairnforth moved--or rather was moved--slowly down the long room.
Malcolm was wheeling him to a side seat well sheltered and comfortable, when he said, "Stop! Remember I am twenty-one to-day.

I think I ought to take my seat at the head of my own table." Malcolm obeyed.