The intention I had just announced was, however, but just born of her words. I had never yet searched even my grandmother’s bureau, and had but this very moment fancied there might be papers in some old chest in the lumber-room. That room had already begun to occupy my thoughts from another point of view, and hence, in part, no doubt the suggestion. I was anxious to have a visit from Charley. He might bring with him some of our London friends. There was absolutely no common room in the house except the hall-kitchen. The room we had always called the lumber-room was over it, and nearly as large. It had a tall stone chimney-piece, elaborately carved, and clearly had once been a room for entertainment. The idea of restoring it to its original dignity arose in my mind; and I hoped that, furnished after as antique a fashion as I could compass, it would prove a fine room. The windows were small, to be sure, and the pitch rather low, but the whitewashed walls were pannelled, and I had some hopes of the ceiling. ‘Who knows,’ I said to myself, as I walked home that evening, ‘but I may come upon papers? I do remember something in the furthest corner that looks like a great chest.’ Little more had passed between us, but Clara left me with the old Dissatisfaction beginning to turn itself, as if about to awake once more. For the present I hung the half-naked blade upon the wall, for I dared not force it lest the scabbard should go to pieces. When I reached home, I found a letter from Charley, to the effect that, if convenient, he would pay me a visit the following week. His mother and sister, he said, had been invited to Moldwarp Hall. His father was on the continent for his health. Without having consulted them on the matter, which might involve them in after-difficulty, he would come to me, and so have an opportunity of seeing them in the sunshine of his father’s absence. I wrote at once that I should be delighted to receive him. The next morning I spent with my man in the lumber-room; and before mid-day the rest of the house looked like an old curiosity shop--it was so littered with odds and ends of dust-bloomed antiquity. It was hard work, and in the afternoon I found myself disinclined for more exercise of a similar sort. I had Lilith out, and took a leisurely ride instead. The next day, and the next also, I remained at home. The following morning I went again to Moldwarp Hall. I had not been busy more than an hour or so when Clara, who, I presume, had in passing heard me at work, looked in. ‘Who is a truant now?’ she said. ‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Here has Miss Brotherton been almost curious concerning your absence, and Sir Giles more than once on the point of sending to inquire after you!’ ‘Why didn’t he, then?’ ‘Oh! I suppose he was afraid it might look like an assertion of--of--of baronial rights, or something of the sort. How _could_ you behave in such an inconsiderate fashion!’