"That is what I think sometimes," said Lilias; "but, then, it will never be completed. All the country knows our story. We are poor, far too poor. And, even if it were finished, it would need, Margaret says, an army of servants, and to furnish it would take a fortune. So it would be long, long before we arrived at the princes." She ended with a laugh, which, in its turn, ended with a sigh. "But you--would like to do it?--that would amuse you----" "Oh! amuse me! It would not be amusement. It would be grand to do it! They say it would be finer than Taymouth. Did you ever hear that?" "It is like the Louvre," said Lewis, "and that was built for a great king's palace. It is like the ghost, not of a person, but of an age. I think your ancestors must come and walk about and inspect it all, and hold solemn councils." "But my ancestors knew nothing about it," said Lilias. "Oh! not that; if they come it will be to make remarks, and say how silly grandpapa was. If ghosts are like people, that is what they will be saying, and that they knew what it would end in all along, but he never would pay any attention. I hope he never comes himself, or he would hear--he would hear," cried Lilias, laughing, "what Margaret calls a few truths." "Do you think he was--silly?" Lewis asked. What right had he to be so _émotionné_, to feel the moisture in his eyes and his voice tremble? What could she think of him if she perceived this? She would think it was affectation, and that he was making believe. "I think I am silly too," Lilias said. She would not commit herself. She had heard a great deal about the old Sir Patrick, and she was aware that he had disinherited her; but he, too, was in her imagination a shadowy, great figure, of whom something mysterious might yet be heard, for all Lilias knew. Strange stories had been told about him. He had dabbled in black-arts. He had done a great many strange things in his life. Perhaps even now a mysterious packet might arrive some day, a new will be found, or some late movement of repentance. He might even step out from behind a tree in the Ghost's Walk, or out of a dark corner in the library, and explain with a dead voice, sounding far off, what he had done and why. This suppressed imagination made Lilias always charitable to him. Or perhaps she was moved by a kind of fascination and sympathy for one who had made his imagination into something palpable, and built castles in stone as she had done in dreams. Lewis looked at her very wistfully. "The princes you entertained would be noble ones," he said, "not only princes for show." "Oh, how do you know, Mr. Murray? Do you think I am such a--fool? Well! it would be like a fool to dream of that, when there is next to no money at all; you might forgive a child for being so silly, but a woman grown-up, a person that ought to know better----" He kept looking at her, with a little moisture in his eyes.