idently did wish to walk with the boy, and accordingly rose as
soon as he had finished his breakfast, Mrs. Melcombe giving him some
directions, and a key to let himself in with by a side gate.

All the intelligence Brandon possessed, and all his keenness of
observation, he exercised during his walk with the little heir. He could
generally attract children, and Peter was already well inclined toward
him, for he had shown himself to be knowing about a country boy's
pleasures; also he knew all about the little Mortimers and their doings.

Brandon wished to see Melcombe, even to examine some parts of the house
and grounds, and he wanted if possible to hear something more about the
ghost story; but it did not suit him to betray any special interest. So
he left it to work its way to the surface if it would. It was not the
business he had come about, but he had undertaken to transact that, on
purpose because it gave him a chance of looking at the place.

This was the deep glen, then, that he had heard Valentine speak of?

"Yes; and mother says the old uncle Mortimer (that one who lived at
Wigfield) improved it so much; he had so many trees thinned out, and a
pond dug where there used to be a swamp. We've got some carp in that
pond. Do you think, if I fed them, they would get tame?"

Brandon told some anecdote of certain carp that he had seen abroad, and
then asked--

"Do you like the glen, my boy--is it a favourite place of yours?"

"Pretty well," answered Peter. "There are not so many nests, though, as
there used to be. It used to be quite dark with trees."

"Did you like it then?"

"Yes, it was jolly; but----"

"But what?" asked Brandon carelessly.

"Grandmother didn't like it," said the boy.

Brandon longed to ask why.

"She was very old, my grandmother."

"Yes. And so she didn't like the glen?"

"No; but the old uncle has had a walk, a sort of path, made through it;
and mamma says I may like it as much as I please, so does aunt Laura."
"You know," continued the child, in an argumentative tone, "there's no
place in the world where somebody hasn't died."

"Now, what does this mean?" thought Brandon. "I would fain raise the
ghost if I could. Is he coming up now, or is he not?"

Presently, however, Peter made some allusion to the family
misfortune--the death of the eldest son, by which Brandon perceived that
it had taken place in the glen. He then dropped the subject, nothing
more that was said till a few m