“Nobody has lived there since I can remember--oh, and not for a long time before. Even Uncle Henry never lived there. I think I must have been silly to bring you, for it can’t be fit to live in now I think of it; and while matters are undecided about poor Harry they will not do anything. Oh, I am afraid mother and I were hasty in thinking it would do.” “On the contrary,” said young Brotherton, feeling in the enthusiasm of the moment as if it had been a palace which he had just quitted, “it is everything I require. Perhaps,” he added, modestly, as if by an afterthought, “they would not mind--sweeping it out.” “I spoke to Jane, that is Isaac’s wife. Isaac is a very funny old man, but he is frightened for his wife. She keeps him right. And she will scrub it, and sweep it, and dust it, and make it as clean as a new pin. Oh, you may be quite sure of that. And then, at first, you can take your meals with us, the White House is so near--only two miles, what is that?” “Nothing,” said Brotherton, with enthusiasm. Then he added, “I must not tire you out. I shall do very well. I can get everything I want here.” “Oh, no; until you get used to Jane, and accustomed to the cooking, and all that--I know these things are of consequence to gentlemen,” Lydia said, with a soft smile of feminine superiority, “you must come and take your meals at the White House. But Jane Oliver is quite a good cook,” she added, encouragingly. Brotherton’s heart had sunk within him at the mention of Jane’s cookery. The cookery could not but be a terrible necessity in such a place. But he scorned to show any such weakness. “I am sure she is,” he said, cheerfully. “I feel certain that I shall be in the best of quarters. Is there a ghost?” “A ghost! why should there be a ghost?” cried Lydia, in surprise. Then she added, with a little dignity, “There was never anybody injured or betrayed in a house that belonged to the Joscelyns. So there can’t be any ghosts.” “You reprove me justly,” he said, feeling his little joke very small indeed in the presence of Lydia’s youthful dignity. “It was a vulgar, slangy sort of suggestion. I see the folly of it now.” “No folly,” said Lydia, from her pedestal; “you did not know.”