The factor looked up deprecatingly, the very words which his excitement brought to his own lips, sounding harsh from another's. "Mrs. Catherine, Mr. Archibald is young. When other lads were leaving school or entering college, he was launched upon the world his own master, with a great income and a large estate.--You know how easily the light spirit of youth is moved, but you cannot know how the way of a young man is hedged in with temptations--Mrs. Catherine!" the factor raised his hand in appeal. "Speak not to me," said Mrs. Catherine, "I know! yes truly, I know more than you think, or give me credit for. Temptations! and what is obedience that has never been tried, or strength that has not been exercised in needful resistance? I bid ye listen to me, Robert Ferguson--was there not a test appointed in Eden? and would you set youself to say that the fool of a woman (that I should say so, who am of her lineage and blood!) might be justified for her ill-doing, because the fruit hung fair upon the tree, and tempted the wandering eye of her? Think better of my judgment and bring no such pleas to me." "What can I bring? What can I say?" said Mr. Ferguson, in a low voice. "Is he to be left to live or die, as he best can, in yon strange country? Are we to let him sink into a professional gamester, like the men who have ruined him? I speak wildly.--He would never do that. I myself must seek, in some other place, a livelihood for my family; and I will get it; for my work is clear before me, and it is known that I can do what I undertake; but for him, Mrs. Catherine, with no friend in this wide world but yourself, who can give him efficient help--with not an acre but these poor lands of Loelyin and Lochend, which are still entailed; and, worse than all that, with his best years lost, his principles unsettled, and a stain upon his name--what is to become of him?" "He will drink the beverage he has brewed," said Mrs. Catherine, harshly. "He will have the reward of the waster, as I have told you before now. Let him take his wages--let him want now, as he has sinfully wasted. It is his righteous hire and reward." "And you can see that, can think of that, and not stretch out a hand to him?" cried the factor, nervously, as he rose from his chair. "Except my hand and my head, Mrs. Catherine Douglas, I have no inheritance; and your estate yields gold to you, greater every year; but, before I see want come to Strathoran's son, I will labor night and day. The professions are open to him yet.--His mother's uncle was a Lord of Session; his father's cousin was the greatest physician in Edinburgh. I bid you good morning, Mrs. Catherine. I have to write to Mr. Archibald, without loss of time."