"But I am never likely to have the chance of doing any kindness to such a very fine gentleman." Lord Cairnforth smiled to himself once more, and let the conversation end; afterward--long afterward, he recalled it, and thought with a strange comfort that then, at least, there was nothing to conceal; nothing but sincerity in the sweet, honest face--not pretty, but so perfectly candid and true--with the sun shining on the lint-white hair, and the bright blue eyes meeting his, guileless as a child's.

Ay, and however they were dimmed with care and washed with tears--oceans of bitterness--that innocent, childlike look never, even when she was an old woman, quite faded out of Helen's eyes.
"Ay," Lord Cairnforth said to himself, when she had gone away, and he was left alone in that helpless solitude which, being the inevitable necessity, had grown into the familiar habit of his life, "ay, it is all right.

No harm could come--there would be nothing neglected--even were I to die to-morrow." That "dying to-morrow," which might happen to any one of us, how few really recognize it and prepare for it! Not in the ordinary religious sense of "preparation for death"-- often a most irreligious thing -- a frantic attempt of sinning and terror-stricken humanity to strike a balance-sheet with heaven, just leaving a sufficient portion on the credit side--but preparation in the ordinary worldly meaning-- keeping one's affairs straight and clear, that no one may be perplexed therewith afterward; forgiving and asking forgiveness of offenses; removing evil done, and delaying not for a day any good that it is possible to do.
It was a strange thing; but, as after his death it was discovered, the true secret of the wonderful calmness and sweetness which, year by year, deepened more and more in Lord Cairnforth's character, ripening it to a perfectness in which those who only saw the outside of his could hardly believe, consisted in this ever-abiding thought--that he might die to-morrow.

Existence was to him such a mere twilight, dim, imperfect, and sad, that he never rested in it, but lived every day, as it were, in prospect of the eternal dawn..