Kitty wondered.

"Do you see anything ?" she asked.
He answered that there was nothing to see, in the absent tone of a man busy with his own thoughts.

They took the garden path which led to the cottage.

As they reached the door he roused himself, and looked round again in the direction of the invisible lake.
"Was the boat-house of any use now," he inquired--"was there a boat in it, for instance ?" "There was a capital boat, fit to go anywhere." "And a man to manage it ?" "To be sure! the gardener was the man; he had been a sailor once; and he knew the lake as well as--" Kitty stopped, at a loss for a comparison.

"As well as you know your multiplication table ?" said Mr.Sarrazin, dropping his serious questions on a sudden.