like
you--I don't mean so well as I do, because you haven't to teach him
anything, and nobody can love anybody so well as the one he teaches to
be good."

"Still I think you had better leave it alone lest he should not like
your asking him. I should be sorry to have you disappointed."

"I do not mind that so much as I used. If you do not tell me I am not
to do it, I think I will venture."

Donal said no more. He did not feel at liberty, from his own feeling
merely, to check the boy. The thing was not wrong, and something might
be intended to come out of it! He shrank from the least ruling of
events, believing man's only call to action is duty. So he left Davie
to do as he pleased.

"Does your father often tell you a fairy-tale?" he asked.

"Not every day, sir."

"What time does he tell them?"

"Generally when I go to him after tea."

"Do you go any time you like?"

"Yes; but he does not always let me stay. Sometimes he talks about
mamma, I think; but only coming into the fairy-tale.--He has told me
one in the middle of the day! I think he would if I woke him up in the
night! But that would not do, for he has terrible headaches. Perhaps
that is what sometimes makes his stories so terrible I have to beg him
to stop!"

"And does he stop?"

"Well--no--I don't think he ever does.--When a story is once begun, I
suppose it ought to be finished!"

So the matter rested for the time. But about a week after, Donal
received one morning through the butler an invitation to dine with the
earl, and concluded it was due to Davie, whom he therefore expected to
find with his father. He put on his best clothes, and followed Simmons
up the grand staircase. The great rooms of the castle were on the first
floor, but he passed the entrance to them, following his guide up and
up to the second floor, where the earl had his own apartment. Here he
was shown into a small room, richly furnished after a sombrely ornate
fashion, the drapery and coverings much faded, worn even to shabbiness.
It had been for a century or so the private sitting-room of the lady of
the castle, but was now used by the earl, perhaps in memory of his
wife. Here he received his sons, and now Donal, but never any whom
business or politeness compelled him to see.

There was no one in the room when Donal entered, but after about ten
minutes a door opened at the further end, and lord Morven appearing
from his bedroom, shook hands with him with some faint show o