“I think you should wait,” said his adviser, “till Mossgray gives you the counsel you asked from him. You may remind him of it, Halbert, but I think you should not press our good friend; we may have all confidence in the kindness of Mossgray.” Halbert fully assented. The old man had charmed all doubts from the mind of the young one, and with a light heart and perfect content, he left his anxieties in his kinsman’s hand. Lilias had never ventured so far before, and now their course was suddenly stayed by a deep cavernous burn, rumbling far down, under a long avenue of very large saugh or willow trees. The foliage of these was so exuberant in summer that the hoarse water below scarcely ever saw the sun; and over it was an old dilapidated bridge--rude planks of wood, fenced on each side by stiles, and so decayed as to seem unsafe. Halbert parted the thick willow branches with his hand to look through; and beyond they saw, half buried in a wilderness of trees, the roof and gables of a house. Lilias had heard of this place so often that she knew at once what it was. “I am afraid this is scarcely safe for you,” said Halbert. “Shall we have to return, Lilias? though I confess I should like to explore this place. Does anybody live in that wilderness, I wonder.” “I fancy it must be Murrayshaugh,” said Lilias. She spoke low; there was something which excited her reverence in the melancholy decay and loneliness of the old house, and the unknown fate of its owners. “Let us go nearer, Halbert; the bridge must be safe enough.” It was not very safe, yet it bore the light weight of Lilias, and quivered beneath the springing bound of Halbert; they were within the enclosure of Murrayshaugh. The house was less irregular and less extensive than Mossgray. Its former proprietors, in their prosperous time, had not chosen to establish themselves on the bleak far-seeing mount, where the remains of the ancient peel were now mouldering stone by stone: and this house, decayed as it was, had some architectural pretensions. Its taper spear-like turrets shot up through the bewildering maze of wood in which it was enclosed, and the mossy terrace stretching along its front gave some distinctness to its form below. A very narrow grass-grown path wound past a rounded gable to some back entrance; and the former flower-beds bordering the way bore now a scanty crop of vegetables--except this all was perfectly neglected; but the few cabbages and leeks, and a thin ascending breath of smoke, and a gentle aroma of peats, told that somewhere about the solitary house there was humanity, and its attendant spirit, the fire. “Did you ever hear of this place, Halbert?” said Lilias, as they stood beside the great window in the gable, looking into a large, faded, melancholy room, which bore evident marks of care and order, solitary and desolate though it was. Halbert looked a little astonished.