It should have been forgotten by
this time, for the ratio of forgetting, increases."
"I should like much to hear it!" said Donal.
"Do tell him, Hector," said Miss Graeme, "and I will watch his
hair."
"It is the hair of those who mock at such things you should watch,"
returned Donal. "Their imagination is so rarely excited that, when
it is, it affects their nerves more than the belief of others
affects theirs."
"Now I have you!" cried Miss Graeme. "There you confess yourself a
believer!"
"I fear you have come to too general a conclusion. Because I
believe the Bible, do I believe everything that comes from the
pulpit? Some tales I should reject with a contempt that would
satisfy even Miss Graeme; of others I should say--'These seem as if
they might be true;' and of still others, 'These ought to be true, I
think.'--But do tell me the story."
"It is not," replied Mr. Graeme, "a very peculiar one--certainly not
peculiar to our castle, though unique in some of its details; a
similar legend belongs to several houses in Scotland, and is to be
found, I fancy, in other countries as well. There is one not far
from here, around whose dark basements--or hoary battlements--who
shall say which?--floats a similar tale. It is of a hidden room,
whose position or entrance nobody knows. Whether it belongs to our
castle by right I cannot tell.
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