As they returned they passed the new house, at some distance, on the highest point in the park. It stood unfinished, with all its windows boarded up.
"The walls of that house," said Mr. Drake, "were scarcely above ground when I came to Glaston. So they had been for twenty years, and so they remained until, as you remember, the building was recommenced some three or four years ago. Now, again, it is forsaken, and only the wind is at home in it."
"They tell me the estate is for sale," said Dorothy. "Those building-lots, just where the lane leads into Pine street, I fancy belong to it."
"I wish," returned her father, "they would sell me that tumble-down place in the hollow they call the Old House of Glaston. I shouldn't mind paying a good sum for it. What a place it would be to live in! And what a pleasure there would be in the making of it once more habitable, and watching order dawn out of neglect!"
"It would be delightful," responded Dorothy. "When I was a child, it was one of my dreams that that house was my papa's—with the wild garden and all the fruit, and the terrible lake, and the ghost of the lady that goes about in the sack she was drowned in. But would you really buy it, father, if you could get it?"
"I think I should, Dorothy," answered Mr. Drake.
"Would it not be damp—so much in the hollow? Is it not the lowest spot in the park?"
"In the park—yes; for the park drains into it. But the park lies high; and you must note that the lake, deep as it is—very deep, yet drains into the Lythe. For all they say of no bottom to it, I am nearly sure the deepest part of the lake is higher than the surface of the river. If I am right, then we could, if we pleased, empty the lake altogether—not that I should like the place nearly so well without it. The situation is charming—and so sheltered!—looking full south—just the place to keep open house in!"
"That is just like you, father!" cried Dorothy, clapping her hands once and holding them together as she looked up at him. "The very day you are out of prison, you want to begin to keep an open house!—Dear father!"
"Don't mistake me, my darling. There was a time, long ago, after your mother was good enough to marry me, when—I am ashamed to confess it even to you, my child—I did enjoy making a show. I wanted people to see, that, although I was a minister of a sect looked down upon by the wealthy priests of a worldly establishment, I knew how to live after the world's fashion as well as they. That time you will scarcely recall, Dorothy?"