know, I think somehow a great one."

"I've had a long talk with him to-night," said Archie.

"I was supposing so," said Glenalmond.

"And he struck me - I cannot deny that he struck me as something very
big," pursued the son. "Yes, he is big. He never spoke about himself;
only about me. I suppose I admired him. The dreadful part - "

"Suppose we did not talk about that," interrupted Glenalmond. "You know
it very well, it cannot in any way help that you should brood upon it,
and I sometimes wonder whether you and I - who are a pair of
sentimentalists - are quite good judges of plain men."

"How do you mean?" asked Archie.

"FAIR judges, mean," replied Glenalmond. "Can we be just to them? Do
we not ask too much? There was a word of yours just now that impressed
me a little when you asked me who we were to know all the springs of
God's unfortunate creatures. You applied that, as I understood, to
capital cases only. But does it - I ask myself - does it not apply all
through? Is it any less difficult to judge of a good man or of a half-
good man, than of the worst criminal at the bar? And may not each have
relevant excuses?"

"Ah, but we do not talk of punishing the good," cried Archie.

"No, we do not talk of it," said Glenalmond. "But I think we do it. Your
father, for instance."