ith
stained glass_."

"And the cloister you are always speaking about, where will that be?"

"The cloister will come at the back of the chapel, and an arched and
vaulted ambulatory will be laid round the house. Later on I shall add a
refectory, and put a lavatory at one end of the ambulatory."

"But don't you think, John, you may get tired of being a monk, and then
the house will have to be built back again."

"Never, the house will be from every point of view, a better house when
my alterations are carried into effect. Beside, why should I be tired of
being a monk? Your father does not get tired of being a parson."

This reply, although singularly unconvincing, was difficult to answer,
and the conversation fell. And day by day, John's schemes strengthened
and took shape, and he seemed to look upon himself already as a
Carmelite. He had even gone so far as to order a habit, it had arrived
a few days ago; and an architect, too, had come down from London. He
was the ray of hope in Mrs Norton's life. For although he had loudly
commended the artistic taste exhibited in the drawing, and expressed
great wonderment at John's architectural skill, he had, nevertheless,
when questioned as to their practicability, declared the scheme to be
wholly impossible. And the reasons he advanced in support of his
opinions were so conclusive that John was fain to beg of him to draw up
a more possible plan for the conversion of an Italian house into a
Gothic monastery.

Mr ---- seemed to think the idea a wild one, but he promised to see what
could be done to overcome the difficulties he foresaw, and in a week
he forwarded John several drawings for his consideration. Judged by
comparison with John's dreams, the practical architecture of the
experienced man seemed altogether lacking in expression and in poetry
of proportion; and comparing them with his own cherished project, John
hung over the billiard-table, where the drawings were laid out, hour
after hour, only to rise more bitterly fretful, more utterly unable than
usual to reconcile himself to natural limitation, more hopelessly
longing for the unattainable.

He could think of nothing but his monastery; his Latin authors were
forgotten; he drew facades and turrets on the cloth during dinner, and
he went up to his room, not to bed, but to reconsider the difficulties
that rendered the construction of a central tower an impossibility.

Midnight: the house seems alive in the silence: