disposition, and broke into a peal of healthy and natural laughter.

"Well played, Mrs. Elliott!" he cried; and the housekeeper's face
relaxed into the shadow of an iron smile. "Well played indeed!" said

he. "But you must not be making a stranger of me like that. Why,
Archie and I were at the High School together, and we've been to college

together, and we were going to the Bar together, when - you know! Dear,
dear me! what a pity that was! A life spoiled, a fine young fellow as

good as buried here in the wilderness with rustics; and all for what? A
frolic, silly, if you like, but no more. God, how good your scones are,

Mrs. Elliott!"
"They're no mines, it was the lassie made them," said Kirstie; "and,

saving your presence, there's little sense in taking the Lord's name in
vain about idle vivers that you fill your kyte wi'."

"I daresay you're perfectly right, ma'am," quoth the imperturbable
Frank. "But as I was saying, this is a pitiable business, this about

poor Archie; and you and I might do worse than put our heads together,
like a couple of sensible people, and bring it to an end. Let me tell

you, ma'am, that Archie is really quite a promising young man, and in my
opinion he would do well at the Bar. As for his father, no one can deny

his ability, and I don't fancy any one would care to deny that he has
the deil's own temper - "

"If you'll excuse me, Mr. Innes, I think the lass is crying on me," said
Kirstie, and flounced from the room.

"The damned, cross-grained, old broomstick!" ejaculated Innes.
In the meantime, Kirstie had escaped into the kitchen, and before her

vassal gave vent to her feelings.
"Here, ettercap! Ye'll have to wait on yon Innes! I canna haud myself

in. `Puir Erchie!' I'd `puir Erchie' him, if I had my way! And
Hermiston with the deil's ain temper! God, let him take Hermiston's

scones out of his mouth first. There's no a hair on ayther o' the Weirs
that hasna mair spunk and dirdum to it than what he has in his hale

dwaibly body! Settin' up his snash to me! Let him gang to the black
toon where he's mebbe wantit - birling in a curricle - wi' pimatum on

his heid - making a mess o' himsel' wi' nesty hizzies - a fair
disgrace!" It was impossible to hear without admiration Kirstie's

graduated disgust, as she brought forth, one after another, these
somewhat baseless charges. Then she remembered her immediate purpose,

and turned again on her fascinated auditor. "Do ye no hear me, tawpie?
Do ye no hear what I'm tellin' ye? Will I have to shoo ye in to him?

If I come to attend to ye, mistress!" And the maid fled the kitchen,
which had become practically dangerous, to attend on Innes' wants in the

front parlour.
TANTAENE IRAE? Has the reader perceived the reason? Since Frank's

coming there were no more hours of gossip over the supper tray! All his
blandishments were in vain; he had started handicapped on the race for

Mrs. Elliott's favour.
But it was a strange thing how misfortune dogged him in his efforts to

be genial. I must guard the reader against accepting Kirstie's epithets
as evidence; she was more concerned for their vigour than for their

accuracy. Dwaibly, for instance; nothing could be more calumnious.
Frank was the very picture of good looks, good humour, and manly youth.

He had bright eyes with a sparkle and a dance to them, curly hair, a
charming smile, brilliant teeth, an admirablecarriage of the head, the

look of a gentleman, the address of one accustomed to please at first
sight and to improve the impression. And with all these advantages, he

failed with every one about Hermiston; with the silent shepherd, with
the obsequious grieve, with the groom who was also the ploughman, with

the gardener and the gardener's sister - a pious, down-hearted woman
with a shawl over her ears - he failed equally and flatly. They did not

like him, and they showed it. The little maid, indeed, was an
exception; she admired him devoutly, probably dreamed of him in her

private hours; but she was accustomed to play the part of silent auditor
to Kirstie's tirades and silent recipient of Kirstie's buffets, and she

had learned not only to be a very capable girl of her years, but a very
secret and prudent one besides. Frank was thus conscious that he had

one ally and sympathiser in the midst of that general union of disfavour
that surrounded, watched, and waited on him in the house of Hermiston;

but he had little comfort or society from that alliance, and the demure
little maid (twelve on her last birthday) preserved her own counsel, and

tripped on his service, brisk, dumbly responsive, but inexorably
unconversational. For the others, they were beyond hope and beyond

endurance. Never had a young Apollo been cast among such rustic
barbarians. But perhaps the cause of his ill-success lay in one trait

which was habitual and unconscious with him, yet diagnostic of the man.
It was his practice to approach any one person at the expense of some

one else. He offered you an alliance against the some one else; he
flattered you by slighting him; you were drawn into a small intrigue

against him before you knew how. Wonderful are the virtues of this
process generally; but Frank's mistake was in the choice of the some one

else. He was not politic in that; he listened to the voice of
irritation. Archie had offended him at first by what he had felt to be

rather a dry reception, had offended him since by his frequent absences.
He was besides the one figure continually present in Frank's eye; and it

was to his immediate dependants that Frank could offer the snare of his
sympathy. Now the truth is that the Weirs, father and son, were

surrounded by a posse of strenuous loyalists. Of my lord they were
vastly proud. It was a distinction in itself to be one of the vassals

of the "Hanging Judge," and his gross, formidable joviality was far from
unpopular in the neighbourhood of his home. For Archie they had, one

and all, a sensitiveaffection and respect which recoiled from a word of
belittlement.

Nor was Frank more successful when he went farther afield. To the Four
Black Brothers, for instance, he was antipathetic in the highest degree.

Hob thought him too light, Gib too profane. Clem, who saw him but for a
day or two before he went to Glasgow, wanted to know what the fule's

business was, and whether he meant to stay here all session time!
"Yon's a drone," he pronounced. As for Dand, it will be enough to

describe their first meeting, when Frank had been whipping a river and
the rusticcelebrity chanced to come along the path.

"I'm told you're quite a poet," Frank had said.
"Wha tell't ye that, mannie?" had been the unconciliating answer.

"O, everybody!" says Frank.
"God! Here's fame!" said the sardonic poet, and he had passed on his

way.
Come to think of it, we have here perhaps a truer explanation of Frank's

failures. Had he met Mr. Sheriff Scott he could have turned a neater
compliment, because Mr. Scott would have been a friend worth making.

Dand, on the other hand, he did not value sixpence, and he showed it
even while he tried to flatter. Condescension is an excellent thing,

but it is strange how one-sided the pleasure of it is! He who goes
fishing among the Scots peasantry with condescension for a bait will

have an empty basket by evening.
In proof of this theory Frank made a great success of it at the

Crossmichael Club, to which Archie took him immediately on his arrival;
his own last appearance on that scene of gaiety. Frank was made welcome

there at once, continued to go regularly, and had attended a meeting (as
the members ever after loved to tell) on the evening before his death.

Young Hay and young Pringle appeared again. There was another supper at
Windiclaws, another dinner at Driffel; and it resulted in Frank being

taken to the bosom of the county people as unreservedly as he had been
repudiated by the country folk. He occupied Hermiston after the manner

of an invader in a conquered capital. He was perpetually issuing from
it, as from a base, to toddy parties, fishing parties, and dinner

parties, to which Archie was not invited, or to which Archie would not
go. It was now that the name of The Recluse became general for the

young man. Some say that Innes invented it; Innes, at least, spread it
abroad.

"How's all with your Recluse to-day?" people would ask.
"O, reclusing away!" Innes would declare, with his bright air of saying

something witty; and immediately interrupt the general laughter which he
had provoked much more by his air than his words, "Mind you, it's all

very well laughing, but I'm not very well pleased. Poor Archie is a
good fellow, an excellent fellow, a fellow I always liked. I think it

small of him to take his little disgrace so hard, and shut himself up.