Only, you are such a strange, silent little old friend now--I am afraid of you!" Halcyone was rather ahead, leading the way, and she turned and paused while he came up close beside her.
Her eyes were quite startled.
"You afraid of me!" she said.
"Yes--you seem so nymph-like and elusive.

I do not know if I am really looking at an ordinary earth-maiden, or whether you will melt away." "I am quite real," and she smiled, "but now you must notice these two rooms a little that we shall pass through.

They are very ghostly I think; they were the Sir Timothy's who went to fetch James I from Scotland.

I am glad they are not mine, but the long gallery I love; it is my sitting-room--my very own--and in it I keep something which matters to me more than anything else in the world." Then she went on, with a divine shyness which thrilled her companion: "And--I do not know why--but I think I will show it to you." "Yes, please do that," he responded eagerly, "and do not let us stop to look at the ghostly apartments--where you sit interests me far more." So they went rapidly through Sir Timothy's rooms, with the great state bed where had slept his royal master, so the tale ran, and on down some uneven steps, and through a small door, and there found themselves in the long, narrow room, with its bays along the southern side, and one splendid mullioned casement at the end with coats-of-arms emblazoned upon each division.

And through this, which looked west, there poured the lowered afternoon sun with a broad shaft of glorious light.
The place was almost empty, but for a chest or two and a table near this window with writing materials and books.