ed very curiously.

"I wonder what all that can be for," asked David.

"O, no doubt," said Clive, "it's some of the massive wood-work of
the old castle."

"But what was the good of it?"

"Why, to support the roof, of course," said Clive.

"Yes, but there is too much. They would never have needed all that
to support so small a roof. It's a waste of timber."

"O, well, you know you mustn't expect the same ingenuity in an
Italian builder that you would in an American."

"I don't know about that. Why not? Do you mean to say that the
Italians are inferior to the Americans in architecture? Pooh, man!
in America there is no architecture at all; while here, in every
little town, they have some edifice that in America would be
considered something wonderful."

"O, well, you know they are very clumsy in practical matters, in
spite of their Artistic superiority. But apart from that I've just
been thinking that this is only a part of some large castle, and
this lumber work was, perhaps, once the main support of a massive
roof. So, after all, it would have its use."

David said nothing for some time. He was looking earnestly at the
wood-work.

"I'll tell you what it is," said he, at last. "I've got it. It
isn't a castle at all. It's a windmill."

"A windmill!" exclaimed Clive, contemptuously. "What nonsense!
It's an old tower--the keep of some mediaeval castle."

"It's a windmill!" persisted David. "Look at that big beam. It's
round. See in one corner those projecting pieces. They were once
part of some projecting wheel. Why, of course, it's a windmill.
The other end of that cross-beam goes outside for the fans to be
attached to it. This big cross-beam was the shaft. Of course
that's it."

Clive looked very much crest-fallen at this. He was unable to
disprove a fact of which the evidences were now so plain; but he
struggled to maintain a little longer the respectability of his
feudal castle.

"Well," said he, "I dare say it may have been used afterwards for
a windmill; but I am sure it was originally built as a baronial
hall, some time during the middle ages. Afterwards it began to go
to ruin; and then, I dare say, some miller fellow has taken possession
of the keep, and torn off the turrets and battlements, and rigged
up this roof with the beams, and thus turned it into a windmill."

"O, well, you may be right," said David. "Of course it's impossible
to tell."

"O, but I'm sure of it," said Clive, positively.