"Tell me," I say--for at such times all my stock of common sense is
not sufficient to convince me that the old House is but clay. From
its walls so full of voices, from its floors so thick with footsteps,
surely it has learned to live; as a violin, long played on, comes to
learn at last a music of its own. "Tell me, I was but a child to whom
life speaks in a strange tongue, was there any truth in the story?"

"Truth!" snaps out the old House; "just truth enough to plant a lie
upon; and Lord knows not much ground is needed for that weed. I saw
what I saw, and I know what I know. Your mother had a good man, and
your father a true wife, but it was the old story: a man's way is not
a woman's way, and a woman's way is not a man's way, so there lives
ever doubt between them."

"But they came together in the end," I say, remembering.

"Aye, in the end," answers the House. "That is when you begin to
understand, you men and women, when you come to the end."

The grave face of a not too recently washed angel peeps shyly at me
through the railings, then, as I turn my head, darts back and
disappears.

"What has become of her?" I ask.

"She? Oh, she is well enough," replies the House. "She lives close
here. You must have passed the shop. You might have seen her had you
looked in. She weighs fourteen stone, about; and has nine children
living. She would be pleased to see you."