“Perhaps,” said Edwin, “your sister thinks I come too often, as it is.”

Bessie was so deeply engaged pressing Mr. Parker to eat strawberry jam, with cheeks the color of the fruit, that of course she could not have heard what her sister had been saying.

“Oh no, I don’t think she thinks that at all,” Jessie said:  “we never think any one can come too often.  Bessie, can Mr. Forrester come too often?”

But still Miss Ormiston was so occupied with Mr. Parker that she did not hear.

And Mrs. Parker said, “It is a most intensely interesting old place, this:  do not people come to look at it?”

“Oh yes,” replied Bessie, “especially in summer:  we generally have several parties every week.  One of the servants takes them over the castle—­grand people often, with carriages and livery servants.”

“Do you not keep a book for them to write their names in?”

“No, we have never done that.”

“I would do it if I were you:  it would be interesting to know who comes and how many.  Why, very remarkable people may have been here without your knowing.”

“I doubt we are not sufficiently alive to our privileges,” Bessie said.

“It’s fine moonlight,” said the boys, who, seeing that they and every one had ceased eating, were impatient to be out again.  “Come, Mr. Parker, we’ll show you the echo:  Mr. Forrester, come.”

“I’ll go too,” said Mrs. Parker; and they all went but the Rose, who stayed behind for a little to direct about household matters.

The echo was a favorite with the boys, it gave such unlimited scope to their powers of shouting:  it was the sight they most enjoyed exhibiting to strangers.  And it was an echo that could repeat every word of a sentence with such perfection that it was difficult to believe that it was not a human being shouting back from the other side of the park, where stood some houses inhabited by the farm-servants and their families.

“Hallo, Abbot John! is that you?” shouted one of the boys, and the other cried, “Yes, I’m taking a walk,” so quickly that the one sentence seemed the answer to the other, and both came back loud and distinct on the still night-air.

“Are the Ormistons ancient?  It’s all fudge,” shouted John.

“Well,” said Mr. Parker, “that’s the most perfect echo I ever heard.  I’ve no doubt the holy fathers of the Middle Ages knew of it, and used it in some shape to keep the superstitious people in awe.”

“It is awesome,” said his wife, “here in the moonlight, with the old castle so near:  if I were alone, positively I should feel eerie.”

“Are you dull at home, Mr. Forrester?” was sent out from the depths of Will’s chest, and sent back again just as Bessie came out and joined the party.

“Boys! boys!” she said, “don’t be foolish.”

“Why, it was what you said yourself,” her sister remarked.

“Are you ever dull?” the lad shouted again.