prospect? There are two horns to your dilemma, and I must say for
myself I should look mighty ruefully on either. Do you see yourself
explaining to the four Black Brothers? or do you see yourself presenting
the milkmaid to papa as the future lady of Hermiston? Do you? I tell
you plainly, I don't!"

Archie rose. "I will hear no more of this," he said, in a trembling
voice.

But Frank again held up his cigar. "Tell me one thing first. Tell me
if this is not a friend's part that I am playing?"

"I believe you think it so," replied Archle. "I can go as far as that.
I can do so much justice to your motives. But I will hear no more of
it. I am going to bed."

"That's right, Weir," said Frank heartily. "Go to bed and think over
it; and I say, man, don't forget your prayers! I don't often do the
moral - don't go in for that sort of thing - but when I do there's one
thing sure, that I mean it."

So Archie marched off to bed, and Frank sat alone by the table for
another hour or so, smiling to himself richly. There was nothing
vindictive in his nature; but, if revenge came in his way, it might as
well be good, and the thought of Archie's pillow reflections that night
was indescribably sweet to him. He felt a pleasant sense of power. He
looked down on Archie as on a very little boy whose strings he pulled -
as on a horse whom he had backed and bridled by sheer power of
intelligence, and whom he might ride to glory or the grave at pleasure.
Which was it to be? He lingered long, relishing the details of schemes