"I don't want to drag you there against your will. It's my private opinion that the ghost is made up of rats, but be that as it may, there's an awful scrimmage in the old tower at night. Now, then, will you see it, or will you not?"
"I think I won't," said Susy. "The Towers seems to be, from what you say, much like any other place. I hope my father has not been induced to pay too much for it."
"Hoots! he has got a place that mere money couldn't purchase unless the Lorrimers had come to grief. Don't you talk of what you know nothing about, child. The Towers is the Towers, sacred with memory and beautiful——; do you know why the Towers is beautiful, Miss Susy Drummond?"
"No, I'm sure I don't," said Susy, staring in astonishment at Jane, who had stalked up to her now and was staring her full in the face.
"Well, then, perhaps I'd better tell you, if it is for the last time. The Towers is beautiful because for hundreds of years brave men have been born here and gentle noble women have lived here, and their influence has got somehow into the walls and into the furniture, and it pervades the rooms inside and out. It's bad to go against that kind of spirit and you and your father had better be careful when you come here, or you may rake up ghosts that you won't much care about. Now, if you'll have the goodness to go back to the others—you'll find them in the front drawing room. I'll return to my duties, which at the present moment consist of shelling peas and chucking raspberries. That's your way, Miss Susan Drummond, through that door, and if you're wise you'll remember my words."
CHAPTER XXII.
ANTONIA'S GIFT.
When Susan returned to the drawing room she saw no one there but Antonia, who, squatting on the floor, was absorbed heart and soul in copying her Chinese dragons. Susy was not in a humour to talk to Antonia, she therefore proceeded to go further afield. She was anxious to find Hester and Annie. The Towers, with its old-fashioned rooms and old-world furniture, had much disappointed her. It needs the sort of education which nothing could ever give to Susy Drummond, to appreciate a place like the Towers. Hester and Jane Macalister had also between them contrived to depress her, and it was a subdued and rather crestfallen Susy who now crossed the magnificent octagon hall in pursuit of the rest of her party.
Antonia meanwhile worked at her dragons with a will. If Susy were out of her element, Antonia was absolutely steeped in hers. The faded furniture, the subdued light, the rich colour of the magnificent china filled her really artistic nature with a sense of rejoicing. Behind all her affectations, Antonia had a soul. It had never been awakened yet. All her life hitherto poor Antonia had spent her time with the most empty-headed and frivolous people. Only art seemed great and glorious and satisfying. She loved it sincerely, and for itself alone; she had no ambitions with regard to it, ambition was not a part of her queer nature; she would all her life be a humble votary at a lofty shrine. She did not imagine that there could be anything greater than art in the whole world. As yet her soul had not been really aroused, but the time of awakening was near.