Eddy spoke with the composed expression of a man whose worst had been very bad, and who had fathomed all the secrets of life. Archie could not but look on with a certain respect, though his blameless mind recoiled a little from this man of knowledge. He had no experiences of his own save of the most trifling kind, to produce. “The worst of it all,” said Eddy, “is the money. We have all that’s nice, you know, in the way of living, and places to go to and so forth, but never any money in our pockets. I don’t know if the Governor himself is much better. It all goes on quite smoothly, and I suppose it gets paid. I don’t know. I never have a penny to bless myself with.” “Oh, there’s no want here in that way,” said Archie. He took out a card case from his pocket, and took a piece of paper from it. “Here is something my father gave me this morning, for extra expenses he said. I told him I had no extra expenses, but it was no use. And I don’t know what to do with it,” Archie said; “you can’t buy anything at Rosmore. I’ll pay it into my bank, which is his bank too, and there it will lie.” “Good life, Rowland! No use!” cried Eddy, with eager eyes fixed upon the cheque. He took it out of his companion’s hand, and examined it, gloating over every line. “One hundred pounds, James Rowland,” he cried. “I wish I had a few signatures like that. I wish he’d take a few pieces of paper out of his pocket of this description and offer them to me.” “I dare say he would,” said Archie, calmly, “if he knew you were in such great need of them; but you are just romancing on that score.” “Romancing!” cried Eddy. “I romancing! It shows how little you know. You can’t think, Rowland, what temptations a young fellow is subjected to. And then all sorts of harpies about, thirsting for your blood. Before you know where you are, they’ve got you hard and fast, and after that you never dare call your soul your own. Why this fellow John----, I mean a man in London, has got his horrid thumb on me!--Romancing!” cried Eddy, “I’d give my little finger for a bit of paper like that--and one a day as long as they lasted for ever and ever.” To see Archie’s countenance while his companion was speaking was an experience in its way. He raised himself erect the first minute out of his habitual lounging and careless attitude. His brow cleared more and more. He pushed his hat back, revealing it with the heavy ruddy hair, pushed back too, and standing up in a thick crest: his eyes so often overcast, or gleaming out in sudden gleams, half-timorous half-defiant, were bent steadily upon Eddy’s face with something celestial in their blueness--his mother’s eyes. He had never looked out upon the world so openly, so free, with so little self-consciousness, since the first day when his father’s heart had risen at the first look of him in the humble parlour at Sauchiehall Road; and there was something of a new-developed soul, something higher, something deeper in that look now.