old him she had had a beautiful night, full of the
loveliest dreams. One of them was, that a child came out of a grassy
hillock by the wayside, called her mamma, and said she was much obliged
to her for taking her off the cold stone, and making her a butterfly;
and with that the child spread out gorgeous and great wings and soared
up to a white cloud, and there sat laughing merrily to her.

Every afternoon Davie read to her, and thence Donal gained a duty--that
of finding suitable pabulum for the two. He was not widely read in
light literature, and it made necessary not a little exploration in the
region of it.

CHAPTER LXV.

THE WALL.

On the day after the last triad in the housekeeper's parlour, as Donal
sat in the schoolroom with Davie--about noon it was--he became aware
that for some time he had been hearing laborious blows apparently at a
great distance: now that he attended, they seemed to be in the castle
itself, deadened by mass, not distance. With a fear gradually becoming
more definite, he sat listening for a few moments.

"Davie," he said, "run and see what is going on."

The boy came rushing back in great excitement.

"Oh, Mr. Grant, what do you think!" he cried. "I do believe my father
is after the lost room! They are breaking down a wall!"

"Where?" asked Donal, half starting from his seat.

"In the little room behind the half-way room--on the stair, you know!"

Donal was silent: what might not be the consequences!

"You may go and see them at work, Davie," he said. "We shall have no
more lessons this morning.--Was your papa with them?"

"No, sir--at least, I did not see him. Simmons told me he sent for the
masons this morning, and set them to take the wall down. Oh, thank you,
Mr. Grant! It is such fun! I do wonder what is behind it! It may be a
place you know quite well, or a place you never saw before!"

Davie ran off, and Donal instantly sped to a corner where he had hidden
some tools, thence to lady Arctura's deserted room, and so to the oak
door. He remembered seeing another staple in the same post, a little
lower down: if he could get that out, he would drive it in beside the
remains of the other, so as to hold the bolt of the lock: if the earl
knew the way in, as doubtless he did, he must not learn that another
had found it--not yet at least! As he went down, every blow of the
masons pounding at the wall, seemed in his very ears.

He peeped through the press-door: they had not