With a haughty, “Very well, do as you like,” Mrs. Walter Scott swept out of the kitchen and made the circuit of the handsome rooms which were now her own. Frank, too, had watched the hack as it drove away, and listened for the signal by which he should know that Hester Floyd was gone, for not till then could _he_ feel perfectly secure in his possessions. But as the loud, shrill blast came up over the hills and then died away amid the windings of the river, there stole over him a pleasurable sense of proprietorship, and he thought involuntarily of the familiar lines, “I am monarch of all I survey, my right there is none to dispute.” Frank liked to feel comfortable in his mind, and as he reviewed the steps by which he had reached his present position, he found many arguments in his own favor which tended to silence any misgivings he might otherwise have experienced. He was not to blame for his grandfather’s will, nor to blame for hiding it. Everybody knew that. Roger said he was not, and Roger’s opinion was worth everything to him. He had been willing to burn the will, and when he could not do that, he offered repeatedly to divide with Roger, and was willing to divide now and always would be. Surely he could do no more than he had done. He was a pretty good fellow after all, and he began to whistle “Annie Laurie” and think of the agent whom Roger had warned him against, and wished it had been anybody but _Holt_, who was such a good judge of horses, and had such a fine high blood for sale, which he offered cheap, because he needed a little ready money. As the war steed scents the battle from afar, and pricks up his ears at the smell of blood, so Frank felt his love of horse flesh growing strong within him. There could be no harm in riding over to _see_ Holt’s horse. He would have to go there any way if he dismissed the man, as Roger had advised, and he would go at once and have a bad job off his mind. Accordingly, when lunch time came Mrs. Walter Scott lunched alone, and when the dinner hour came she dined alone, and when the stable doors were closed that night they shut into his new home Firefly, “the swiftest horse in the county,” which Frank had bought for eleven hundred dollars. Holt, the agent, was not dismissed! CHAPTER XXXI. THE HOME IN SCHODICK.