her."

"What are ye saying now?"

"That I should like to be a minister. I suppose you have no
objections."

"I hae vera great objections. I'll no hear tell o' such a thing.
Ministers canna mak money, and they canna save it. If you should mak
it, that would be an offence to your congregation; if ye should save
it, they would say ye ought to hae gien it to the poor. There will be
nae Dominie Crawford o' my kin, Colin. Will naething but looking down
on the warld from a pulpit sarve you?"

"I like art, father. I can paint a little, and I love music."

"Art! Painting! Music! Is the lad gane daft? God has gien to some men
wisdom and understanding, to ithers the art o' playing on the fiddle
and painting pictures. There shall be no painting, fiddling Crawford
among my kin, Colin."

The young fellow bit his lip, and his eyes flashed dangerously beneath
their dropped lids. But he said calmly enough,

"What is your own idea, father? I am twenty-two, I ought to be doing a
man's work of some kind."

"Just sae. That is warld-like talk. Now I'll speak wi' you anent a
grand plan I hae had for a long time." With these words he rose, and
took from his secretary a piece of parchment containing the plan of