is very ill to-day!" said Arctura.

"I have. Poor man!" replied Donal.

"He must be in a very peculiar condition."

"Of body and mind both. He greatly perplexes me."

"You would be quite as much perplexed if you had known him as long as I
have! Never since my father's death, which seems a century ago, have I
felt safe; never in my uncle's presence at ease. I get no nearer to
him. It seems to me, Mr. Grant, that the cause of discomfort and strife
is never that we are too near others, but that we are not near enough."

This was a remark after Donal's own heart.

"I understand you," he said, "and entirely agree with you."

"I never feel that my uncle cares for me except as one of the family,
and the holder of its chief property. He would have liked me better,
perhaps, if I had been dependent on him."

"How long will he be your guardian?" asked Donal.

"He is no longer my guardian legally. The time set by my father's will
ended last year. I am three and twenty, and my own mistress. But of
course it is much better to have the head of the house with me. I wish
he were a little more like other people!--But tell me about the
ghost-music: we had not time to talk of it last night!"

"I got pretty near the place it came from. But the wind blew so, and it
was so dark, that I could do nothing more then."

"You will try again?"

"I shall indeed."

"I am afraid, if you find a natural cause for it, I shall be a little
sorry."

"How can there be any other than a natural cause, my lady? God and
Nature are one. God is the causing Nature.--Tell me, is not the music
heard only in stormy nights, or at least nights with a good deal of
wind?"

"I have heard it in the daytime!"

"On a still day?"

"I think not. I think too I never heard it on a still summer night."

"Do you think it comes in all storms?"

"I think not."

"Then perhaps it has something to do not merely with the wind, but with
the direction of the wind!"

"Perhaps. I cannot say."

"That might account for the uncertainty of its visits! The instrument
may be accessible, yet its converse with the operating power so rare
that it has not yet been discovered. It is a case in which experiment
is not permitted us: we cannot make a wind blow, neither can we vary
the direction of the wind blowing; observation alone is left us, and
that can be only at such times when the sound is heard."

"Then you can do nothing till the music comes again?"

"I think I can