You are accountable for it to no one--except One," added the good, honest, religious man, now growing an old man, and a little gentler, grave, as well as a little more demonstrative than he had been twenty years before.
"Except One.

I know that; I hope I shall never forget it," replied the Earl of Cairnforth.
And then they proceeded to wind up their business affairs.
"How strange it is," observed the earl, when they had nearly concluded, "how very strange that I should be here in the world, an isolated human being, with not a single blood relation, not a soul who has any real claim upon me!" "Certainly not--no claim whatsoever; and yet you are not quite without blood relations." Lord Cairnforth looked surprised.

"I always understood that I had no near kindred." 'Of near kindred you have none.

But there are certain far-away cousins, of whom, for many reasons, I never told you, and begged Mr.Cardross not to tell you either." "I think I ought to have been told." Mr.Menteith explained his strong reasons for silence, such as the late lord's unpleasant experience--and his own--of the Bruce family, and the necessity he saw for keeping his ward quite out of their association and their influence till his character was matured, and he was of age to judge for himself, and act for himself, concerning them.
All the more, because remote as their kinship was, and difficult to be proved, still, if proved, they would be undoubtedly his next heirs.
"My next heirs," repeated the earl--"of course.

I must have an heir.
I wonder I never thought of that.