The next morning they went to inspect the Temple; Pitt and the two ladies. Mr. Dallas preferred some other occupation. But the interest brought to the inspection was not altogether legitimate. Mrs. Dallas cared principally to see how comfortable her son's chambers were, and to refresh herself with the tokens of antiquity and importance which attached to the place and the institution to which he belonged. Betty was no antiquarian in the best of times, and at present had all her faculties concentrated on one subject and one question which was not of the past. Nevertheless, it is of the nature of things that a high strain of the mind renders it intensely receptive and sensitive for outward impressions, even though they be not welcomed; like a taut string, which answers to a breath breathed upon it. Betty did not care for the Temple; had no interest in the old Templars' arms on the sides of the gateways; and thought its medley of dull courts and lanes a very undesirable place. What was it to her where Dr. Johnson had lived? she did not care for Dr. Johnson at all, and as little for Oliver Goldsmith. Pitt, she saw, cared; how odd it was! It was some comfort that Mrs. Dallas shared her indifference.

'My dear,' she said, 'I do not care about anybody's lodgings but yours.
Dr. Johnson is not there now, I suppose. Where are your rooms?'

But Pitt laughed, and took them first to the Temple church.

Here Betty could not refuse to look and be interested a little. How little, she did not show. The beauty of the old church, its venerable age, and the strange relics of the past in its monuments, did command some attention. Yet Betty grudged it; and went over the Halls and the Courts afterward with a half reluctant foot, hearing as if against her will all that Pitt was telling her and his mother about them. Oh, what did it matter, that one of Shakspeare's plays had been performed in the Middle Temple Hall during its author's lifetime? and what did it signify whether a given piece of architecture were Early English or Perpendicular Gothic? What did interest her, was to see how lively and warm was Pitt's knowledge and liking of all these things. Evidently he delighted in them and was full of information concerning them; and his interest did move Betty a little. It moved her to speculation also. Could this man be so earnest in his enjoyment of Norman arches and polished shafts and the effigies of old knights, and still hold to the views and principles he had avowed and advocated last year? Could he, who took such pleasure in the doings and records of the past, really mean to attach himself to another sort of life, with which the honours and dignities and delights of this common world have nothing to do?

The question recurred again afresh on their return home. As Betty entered the house, she was struck by the beauty of the carved oak staircase, and exclaimed upon it.

'Yes,' said Pitt; 'that is the prettiest part of the house. It is said to be by Inigo Jones; but perhaps that cannot be proved.'

'Does it matter?' said Betty, laughing.

'Not to any real lover of it; but to the rest, you know, the name is the thing.'

'"Lover of it"!' said Betty. 'Can you love a staircase?'

Pitt laughed out; then he answered seriously.

'Don't you know that all that is good and true is in a way bound up together? it is one whole; and I take it to be certain that in proportion to anyone's love for spiritual and moral beauty will be, coeteris paribus, his appreciation of all expression of it, in nature or art.'

'But', said Betty, '"spiritual and moral beauty"! You do not mean that this oak staircase is an expression of either?'

'Of both, perhaps. At any rate, the things are very closely connected.'

'You are an enigma!' said Betty.

'I hope not always to remain so,' he answered.

Betty went up the beautiful staircase, noting as she went its beauties, from storey to storey. She had not noticed it before, although it really took up more room than was proportionate to the size of the house. What did Pitt mean by those last words? she was querying. And could it be possible that the owner of a house like this, with a property corresponding, would not be of the world and live in the world like other men? He must, Betty thought. It is all very well for people who have not the means to make a figure in society, to talk of isolating themselves from society. A man may give up a little; but when he has much, he holds on to it. But how was it with Pitt? She must try and find out.

She accordingly made an attempt that same evening, beginning with the staircase again.

'I admired Inigo Jones all the way up-stairs,' she said, when she had an opportunity to talk to Pitt alone. Mr. Dallas had gone to sleep after dinner, and his wife was knitting at a sufficient distance. 'The quaint fancies and delicate work are really such as I never imagined before in wood-carving. But your words about it remain a puzzle to me.'

'My words? About art being an expression of truth? Surely that is not new?'

'It may be very old; but I do not understand it.'

'You understand, that so far as art is genuine, it is a setter forth of truth?'

'Well, I suppose so; of some truth. Roses must be roses, and trees must be trees; and of course must look as like the reality as possible.'

'That is the very lowest thing art can do, and in some cases is not true art at all. Her business is to tell truth—never to deceive.'

'What sort of truth then?'

'What I said; spiritual and moral.'

'Ah, there it is! Now you have got back to it. Now you are talking mystery, or—forgive me—transcendentalism.'

'No; nothing but simple and very plain fact. It is this first,—that all truth is one; and this next,—that in the world of creation things material are the expression of things spiritual. So all real beauty in form or colour has back of it a greater beauty of higher degree.'

'You are talking pure mystery.'

'No, surely,' said Pitt eagerly. 'You certainly recognise the truth of what I am saying, in some things. For instance, you cannot look up steadily into the blue infinity of one of our American skies on a clear day—at least I cannot—without presently getting the impression of truth, pure, unfailing, incorruptible truth, in its Creator. The rose, everywhere in the world, so far as I know, is the accepted emblem of love. And for another very familiar instance,—Christ is called in the Bible the Sun of righteousness—the Light that is the life of man. Do you know how close to fact that is? What this earth would be if deprived of the sun for a few days, is but a true image of the condition of any soul finally forsaken by the Sun of righteousness. In one word, death; and that is what the Bible means by death, of which the death we commonly speak of is again but a faint image.'

Betty fidgeted a little; this was not what she wished to speak of; it was getting away from her point.

'Your staircase set me wondering about you,' she said boldly, not answering his speech at all.

'In yet another connection?' said Pitt, smiling.

'In another connection. You remember you used to talk to me pretty freely last summer about your new views and plans of life?'

'I remember. But my staircase?'—

'Yes, your staircase. You know it is rich and stately, as well as beautiful. Whatever it signifies to you, to my lower vision it means a position in the world and the means to maintain it. And I debated with myself, as I went up the stairs, whether the owner of all this would still think it his duty to live altogether for others, and not for himself like common people.'

She looked at him, and Pitt met her inquiring eyes with a steady, penetrating, grave look, which half made her wish she had let the question alone. He delayed his answer a little, and then he said,—

'Will you let me meet that doubt in my own way?'

'Certainly!' said Betty, surprised; 'if you will forgive me its arising.'

'Is one responsible for doubts? One may be responsible for the state of mind from which they spring. Then, if you will allow me, I will say no more on the subject for a day or two. But I will not leave you unanswered; that is, unless you refuse to submit to my guidance, and will not let me take my own way.'

'You are mysterious!'

'Will you go with me when I ask you?'

'Yes.'

'Then that is sufficient.'

Betty thought she had not gained much by her move.

The next day was given to the Tower. Mrs. Dallas did not go; her husband was of the party instead. The inspection of the place was thorough, and occupied some hours; Pitt, being able, through an old friend of Mr. Strahan's who was now also his friend, to obtain an order from the Constable for seeing the whole. At dinner Betty delivered herself of her opinion.

'Were you busy all day with nothing but the Tower? asked Mrs. Dallas.

'Stopped for luncheon,' said her husband.

'And we did our work thoroughly, mamma,' added Pitt. 'You must take time, if you want to see anything.'

'Well,' said Betty, 'I must say, if this is what it means, to live in an old country, I am thankful I live in a new one.'

'What now?' asked Mr. Dallas. 'What's the matter?'

'Mrs. Dallas was wiser, that she did not go,' Betty went on. '"I have supped fall of horrors." Really I have read history, but that gives it to one diluted. I had no notion that the English people were so savage.'

'Come, come! no worse than other people,' Mr. Dallas put in.

'I do not know how it is with other people. I am thankful we have no such monument in America. I shouldn't think snow would lie on the Tower!'

'Doesn't often,' said Pitt.

'Think, Mrs. Dallas! I stood in that little chapel there,—the prisoners' chapel,—and beneath the pavement lay between thirty and forty people, the remains of them, who lay there with their heads separated from their bodies; and some of them with no heads at all. The heads had been set up on London bridge, or on Temple Bar, or some other dreadful place. And then as we went round I was told that here was the spot where Lady Jane Grey was beheaded; and there was the window from which she saw the headless body of her husband carried by; and there stood the rack on which Anne Askew was tortured; and there was the prison where Arabella Stuart died insane; and here was the axe which used to be carried before the Lieutenant when he took a prisoner to his trial, and was carried before the prisoner when he returned, mostly with the sharp edge turned towards him. I do not see how people used to live in those times. There are Anne Boleyn and her brother, Lady Jane Grey and her husband, and other Dudleys innumerable'—

'My dear, do stop,' said Mrs. Dallas. 'I cannot eat my dinner, and you cannot.'

'Eat dinner! Did anybody use to eat dinner, in those times? Did the world go on as usual? with such horrors on the throne and in the dungeon?'

'It is a great national monument,' said Mr. Dallas, 'that any people might be proud of.'

'Proud! Well, I am glad, as I said, that the sky is blue over America.'

'The blue looks down on nothing so fine as our old Tower. And it isn't so blue, either, if you could know all.'

'Where are you going to take us next, Pitt?' Mrs. Dallas asked, to give things a pleasanter turn.

'How did you like St. Paul's, Miss Betty?' her husband went on, before
Pitt could speak.

'It is very black!'

'That is one of its beauties,' remarked Pitt.

'Is it? But I am accustomed to purer air. I do not like so much smoke.'

'You were interested in the monuments?' said Mrs. Dallas.

'Honestly, I am not fond of monuments. Besides, there is really a reminiscence of the Tower and the axe there very often. I had no conception London was such a place.'

'Let us take her to Hyde Park and show her something cheerful, Pitt.'

'I should like above all things to go to the House of Commons and hear a debate—if it could be managed.'

Pitt said it could be managed; and it was managed; and they went to the Park; and they drove out to see some of the beauties near London, Richmond, Hampton Court, and Windsor; and several days passed away in great enjoyment for the whole party. Betty forgot the Tower and grew gay. The strangeness of her position was forgotten; the house came to be familiar; the alternation of sight-seeing with the quiet household life was delightful. Nothing could be better, might it last. Could it not last? Nay, Betty would have relinquished the sight-seeing and bargained for only the household life, if she could have retained that.