"

"And it won't hurt your feelings?"

"No, you couldn't touch 'em. I'll sit here and wait till you have done."

Jane flung herself on a hard chair as she spoke, and drawing a long
stocking out of her pocket, began to knit furiously.

Susy, who had about as much idea of measuring a room as she had of
turning the heel of a stocking took her tapes out of her pocket and
began an impossible task.

Jane watched her in silence for a moment or two, but Susy's futile
attempts were too much for this deft, managing creature.

"Why don't you foot it?" she exclaimed. "My word, I never saw such a way
to set to work. Here, you want the length of the room. I'll do it for
you. Take your pencil and paper and jot down what I say. You haven't got
any? That's a nice way of doing business. Well, then, I hope you have a
good memory. I always measure a yard as I walk. Now, then, you count.
Here I begin--one, two, three--are you counting?"

"No," said Susy; "I'm greatly obliged, but you confuse me awfully. I
won't do any more measuring to-day; I shouldn't sleep for a week if I
had to keep all that in my head. Some men must come down from Liberty's
or Morris's. Antonia prefers Morris, she says he's the most _chic_."

"I don't know what you mean by chick," said Jane Macalister, "unless you
allude in some mysterious way to the fowls; but I am glad you've got
sense enough not to undertake what Providence has given you no aptitude
for. Now, do you or do you not want to see the rest of the house? To a
person like you, it's just like any other house, only nothing like so
modern and nothing like so comfortable. There's a ghost in the
tower----"

"A ghost," shrieked Susy; "I tremble at ghosts, I'm in terror at them; I
won't go near the tower."

"I don't want to drag you there against your will. It's my private
opinion that the ghost is made up of rats, but be that as it may,
there's an awful scrimmage in the old tower at night. Now, then, will
you see it, or will you not?"

"I think I won't," said Susy. "The Towers seems to be, from what you
say, much like any other place. I hope my father has not been induced to
pay too much for it."

"Hoots! he has got a place that mere money couldn't purchase unless the
Lorrimers had come to grief. Don't you talk of what you know nothing
about, child. The Towers is the Towers, sacred with memory and
beautiful----; do you know why the Towers is beautiful, Miss Susy
Drummond?"

"No, I'm sure I don't,"