“There is frost below when there is none here.” “Yes, papa.” “Why so?” “Because that lies low, and this high.” “But why should that lie low, and this high?” “Of course, because—it is the configuration of the land.” “But how unreasonable, how unjust, that there should be such configuration of the land, as you call it. There should be no elevations and no depressions anywhere—a universal flat is the landscape for you.” Arminell winced. She saw the drift of her father’s remarks. “My dear,” he said, “there must be inequalities in the social level, but I am not sure that these very inequalities do not give charm and richness to the social picture. Each level has its special flora. The marigold and the milkmaid and the forget-me-not love the low moist bottom where the fog and frost hang, and will not thrive here. Those ups and downs, those hills and valleys which so shock your sense of fitness, are the secret of richness, are the secret of fertility. In equatorial Africa, Dr. Schweinfurth found a dead level and perennial swamp. In Mid-Asia, Huc traversed an Alpine plateau absolutely sterile. It is a very unreasonable thing to some that our moors should contain so many acres of unprofitable bog, that they should be sponges receiving, and growing nothing. They say that we, the wealthy, are these absorbing sponges, unprofitable bogs of capital. But, my dear child, if the bogs were all drained, all the water would run off as fast as it fell. They retain the water and gradually discharge it on the thirsty lowlands. And so is it with us. We spend what we receive and enrich therewith those beneath. But come—I shall go in. I am feeling chilled.” “I will take another turn first,” said Arminell. “Don’t fret yourself, my dear,” said her father, “about these matters. Take the world as it is.” “Papa—that advice comes too late. I cannot.” CHAPTER XII. SINTRAM. Lord Lamerton returned to the house; he threw away his cigar-end, and went in at the snuggery door, the door into the room whither the gentlemen retired for pipes and spirits and soda-water, a room ornamented with foxes’ heads and brushes, whips, hunting-pictures, and odds and ends of all sorts. He shut the door and passed through it into that part of the house in which was the school-room, and Giles’ sleeping apartment. As he entered the passage, Lord Lamerton heard piercing shrieks, as from a child yelling in terror or pain. In a moment, Lord Lamerton ran up the stairs towards the bedroom of his son. The nurse was there already, with a light, and was sitting on the bed, endeavouring to pacify the child. Giles sat up in his night-shirt, in the bed clothes, with his eyes wide open, his fair head disordered, striking out with his hands in recurring paroxysms of terror. “What is the matter with him?” asked the father.