"If they stand forever they are so in one sense, I suppose," I answered, beginning to fear that I had already unfortunately broken the rule I had so recently laid down for my own guidance. "But the trees of the forest, to which you compare a house, spring from seed, do they not? and so have a beginning. Their end also, like the end of man, is to die and return to the dust." "That is true," he returned; "it is, moreover, a truth which I do not now hear for the first time; but it has no connection with the subject we are discussing. Men pass away, and others take their places. Trees also decay, but the forest does not die, or suffer for the loss of individual trees; is it not the same with the house and the family inhabiting it, which is one with the house, and endures forever, albeit the members composing it must all in time return to the dust?" "Is there no decay, then, of the materials composing a house?" "Assuredly there is! Even the hardest stone is worn in time by the elements, or by the footsteps of many generations of men; but the stone that decays is removed, and the house does not suffer." "I have never looked at it quite in this light before," said I. "But surely we can build a house whenever we wish!" "Build a house whenever we wish!" he repeated, with that astonished look which threatened to become the permanent expression of his face--so long as he had me to talk with, at any rate. "Yes, or pull one down if we find it unsuitable--" But his look of horror here made me pause, and to finish the sentence I added: "Of course, you must admit that a house had a beginning?" "Yes; and so had the forest, the mountain, the human race, the world itself. But the origin of all these things is covered with the mists of time." "Does it never happen, then, that a house, however substantially built--" "However what! But never mind; you continue to speak in riddles. Pray, finish what you were saying." "Does it never happen that a house is overthrown by some natural force--by floods, or subsidence of the earth, or is destroyed by lightning or fire?" "No!" he answered, with such tremendous emphasis that he almost made me jump from my seat. "Are you alone so ignorant of these things that you speak of building and of pulling down a house?" "Well, I fancied I knew a lot of things once," I answered, with a sigh. "But perhaps I was mistaken--people often are. I should like to hear you say something more about all these things--I mean about the house and the family, and the rest of it." "Are you not, then, able to read--have you been taught absolutely nothing?"