ne thing, however, is certain--that nothing that is
against God's way can be true. The value of property consists only in
its being means, ground, or material to work his will withal. There is
no success in the universe but in his will being done."

Arctura was silent. She had inherited prejudices which, while she hated
selfishness, were yet thoroughly selfish. Such are of the evils in us
hardest to get rid of. They are even cherished for a lifetime by some
of the otherwise loveliest of souls. Knowing that herein much thought
would be necessary for her, and that she would think, Donal went no
farther: a house must have its foundation settled before it is built
upon; argument where the grounds of it are at all in dispute is worse
than useless.

He turned to his ladder, set it right, mounted, and peered into the
opening. At the length of his arm he could reach the wires Davie had
described: they were taut, and free of rust--were therefore not iron or
steel. He saw also that a little down the shaft a faint light came in
from the opposite side: there was another opening somewhere! Next he
saw that each following string--for strings he already counted
them--was placed a little lower than that before it, so that their
succession was inclined to the other side of the shaft--apparently in a
plane between the two openings, that a draught might pass along their
plane: this must surely be the instrument whence the music flowed! He
descended.

"Do you know, my lady," he asked Arctura, "how the aeolian harp is
placed for the wind to wake it?"

"The only one I have seen," she answered, "was made to fit into a
window; the lower sash was opened just wide enough to let it in, so
that the wind entering must pass across the strings."

Then Donal was all but certain.

"Of course," he said, after describing what he had seen, "we cannot be
absolutely sure without having been here with the music, and having
experimented by covering and uncovering the opening; and for that we
must wait a south-easterly wind."

CHAPTER XLII.

COMMUNISM.

But Donal did not feel that even then would he have exhausted the
likelihood of discovery. That the source of the music that had so long
haunted the house was an aeolian harp in a chimney that had never or
scarcely been used, might be enough to satisfy some, but he wanted to
know as well why, if this was a chimney, it neither had been nor was
used, and to what room it was a chimney. For the qu