"
"How long will he be your guardian?" asked Donal.
"He is no longer my guardian legally. The time set by my father's
will ended last year. I am three and twenty, and my own mistress.
But of course it is much better to have the head of the house with
me. I wish he were a little more like other people!--But tell me
about the ghost-music: we had not time to talk of it last night!"
"I got pretty near the place it came from. But the wind blew so, and
it was so dark, that I could do nothing more then."
"You will try again?"
"I shall indeed."
"I am afraid, if you find a natural cause for it, I shall be a
little sorry."
"How can there be any other than a natural cause, my lady? God and
Nature are one. God is the causing Nature.--Tell me, is not the
music heard only in stormy nights, or at least nights with a good
deal of wind?"
"I have heard it in the daytime!"
"On a still day?"
"I think not. I think too I never heard it on a still summer night."
"Do you think it comes in all storms?"
"I think not."
"Then perhaps it has something to do not merely with the wind, but
with the direction of the wind!"
"Perhaps. I cannot say."
"That might account for the uncertainty of its visits! The
instrument may be accessible, yet its converse with the operating
power so rare that it has not yet been discovered. It is a case in
which experiment is not permitted us: we cannot make a wind blow,
neither can we vary the direction of the wind blowing; observation
alone is left us, and that can be only at such times when the sound
is heard.
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