"Dear me," said the lady, "do you mean to tell me that John Bannatyne had that sense in him? I will remember that the next time Robert calls him an auld foozle. And so you saw the lodging of Methven? I have never seen it myself. Did it not make your heart sick to see all the poverty and misery in that awful street? Oh yes, I'm told it's a grand street: but I never have the heart to go into it. I think the place should die with the age that gave it birth."
This was a sentiment so entirely unlike what Walter had expected to hear, that for the moment it took from him all power of reply. "That would be hard upon antiquity," he said at length, "and I don't know what the artists would say, or our friend Mr. Bannatyne."
"He would have me burnt for a witch," the invalid said with a sweet little laugh; and then she added, "Ah, it is very well to talk about art; but there was great sense in that saying of the old Reformers, 'Ding down the nest, and the crows will flee away.'"
"I expected," said Walter, "to find you full of reverence for the past, and faith in mysteries and family secrets, and—how can I tell?—ghosts perhaps." He laughed, but the invalid did not echo his laugh. And this brought a little chill and check to his satisfaction. The sense that one has suddenly struck a jarring note is highly uncomfortable when one is young. Walter put back his chair a little, not reflecting that the firelight revealed very little of his sudden blush.
"I have had no experience in what you call ghosts," she said, gravely. "I cannot, to tell the truth, see any argument against them, except just that we don't see them; and I think that's a pity, for my part."
To this, as it was a view of the subject equally new to him, Walter made no reply.
"Take you care, Lord Erradeen," she resumed hastily, "not to let yourself be persuaded to adopt that sort of nomenclature." There was a touch of Scotch in her accent that naturalised the long word, and made it quite in keeping. "Conclude nothing to be a ghost till you cannot account for it in any other way. There are many things that are far more surprising," she said; then, shaking off the subject once more with that little movement of her head, "You are not taking your tea. You must have had a tiring day after travelling all night. That is one of the modern fashions I cannot make up my mind to. They tell me the railway is not so wearying as the long coach journeys we used to make in the old time."
"But you—can scarcely remember the old coach journeys? Why, my mother——"
"Very likely I am older than your mother; and I rarely budge out of this corner. I have never seen your mother, but I remember Captain Methven long long ago, who was not unlike the general outline of you, so far as I can make out. When the light comes you will see I am an old woman. It is just possible that this is why I am so fond of the firelight," she said with a laugh; "for I'm really very young though I was born long ago. Robert and me, we remember all our games and plays in a way that people that have had children of their own never do. We are just boy and girl still, and I've known us, after a long talk, forget ourselves altogether, and talk of papa and mamma!" She clapped her hands together at this, and went into a peal of genuine laughter, such as is always infectious. Walter laughed too, but in a half-embarrassed, half-unreal way. All was so strange to him, and this curious introduction into a half-seen, uncomprehended world the most curious of all.
"I would like to know a little about yourself," she resumed after a moment. "You were not in the secret that it was you who were the kin? It was strange your father should have left you in the dark."