“Look here, sir,” said Lord Mergwain, and rising, he went up to the laird, and laid his hand on his shoulder; “if I stop, will you give me another room, and promise to share it with me to-night? I am aware it is an odd request to make, but, as I tell you, we have been drinking for generations, and my nerves are the worse for it. It’s rather hard that the sins of the fathers should be visited on the children! Before God, I have enough to do with my own, let alone my fathers’! Every one should bear his own burden. I can’t bear mine. If I could, it’s not much my fathers’ would trouble me!” “My lord, I will do anything I can for you--anything but consent to your leaving Castle Warlock to-day.” “You will spend the night with me then?” “I will.” “But not in that room, you know.” “Anywhere you please in the house, my lord, except my mother’s room.” “Then I’ll stop.--Joan, you may amuse yourself; we are not going till to-morrow.” The laird smiled; he could not flatter himself with the hope of so speedy a departure. Joan turned to Cosmo. “Will you take me about the place?” she said. “If you mean in-doors,” interposed the laird. “It is a curious old house, and might interest you a little.” “I should like nothing better. May I go with Cosmo?” “Certainly: he will be delighted to attend your ladyship.--Here are the keys of the cabinets in the drawing-room, Cosmo. Her ladyship may like to look at some of their contents.” “I hardly know enough about them,” returned Cosmo. “Won’t you come yourself, father, and show them to us?” It was the first time the boy used the appellation. “If they are not worth looking at in themselves, the facts about them cannot be of much consequence, my boy,” answered the laird. He was unwilling to leave Lord Mergwain. Lady Joan and Cosmo went without him. “Perhaps we may follow you by and by,” said the laird. “Is the place very old, Cosmo?” asked Lady Joan on their way. “Nobody knows how old the oldest part of it is,” answered Cosmo, “though dates are assigned to the most of what you will see to-day. But you must ask my father; I do not know much of the history of it. I know the place itself, though, as well as he does. I fancy I know nearly every visible stone of it.” “You are very fond of it, then?” “There never could be any place like it to me, my lady. I know it is not very beautiful, but I love it none the less for that. I sometimes think I love it the more for its ruggedness--ugliness, if you please to call it so. If my mother had not been beautiful, I should love her all the same.”--“and think there wasn’t anybody like her,” he was going to add, but checked himself, remembering that of course there was not.