He got up, put on his hat, and walked rapidly in the direction of the old Bolton house.  Satisfying his curiosity might serve as a palliative to his sudden depression with regard to his love affair.  It is very much more comfortable to consider oneself a cad, and acknowledge to oneself love for a girl, and be sure of her unfortunate love for you, than to consider oneself the dupe of the girl.  Fanny had a keen sense of humor.  Suppose she had been making fun of him.  Suppose she had her own aspirations in other quarters.  He walked on until he reached the old Bolton house.  The door stood open, askew upon rusty hinges.  Wesley Elliot entered and glanced about him with growing curiosity.  The room was obviously a kitchen, one side being occupied by a huge brick chimney inclosing a built-in range half devoured with rust; wall cupboards, a sink and a decrepit table showed gray and ugly in the greenish light of two tall windows, completely blocked on the outside with over-grown shrubs.  An indescribable odor of decaying plaster, chimney-soot and mildew hung in the heavy air.

A door to the right, also half open, led the investigator further.  Here the floor shook ominously under foot, suggesting rotten beams and unsteady sills.  The minister walked cautiously, noting in passing a portrait defaced with cobwebs over the marble mantelpiece and the great circular window opening upon an expanse of tangled grass and weeds, through which the sun streamed hot and yellow.  Voices came from an adjoining room; he could hear Deacon Whittle’s nasal tones upraised in fervid assertion.

“Yes, ma’am!” he was saying, “this house is a little out of repair, you can see that fer yourself; but it’s well built; couldn’t be better.  A few hundred dollars expended here an’ there’ll make it as good as new; in fact, I’ll say better’n new!  They don’t put no such material in houses nowadays.  Why, this woodwork—­doors, windows, floors and all—­is clear, white pine.  You can’t buy it today for no price.  Costs as much as m’hogany, come to figure it out.  Yes, ma’am! the woodwork alone in this house is worth the price of one of them little new shacks a builder’ll run up in a couple of months.  And look at them mantelpieces, pure tombstone marble; and all carved like you see.  Yes, ma’am! there’s as many as seven of ’em in the house.  Where’ll you find anything like that, I’d like to know!”

“I—­think the house might be made to look very pleasant, Mr. Whittle,” Lydia replied, in a hesitating voice.

Wesley Elliot fancied he could detect a slight tremor in its even flow.  He pushed open the door and walked boldly in.

“Good-morning, Miss Orr,” he exclaimed, advancing with outstretched hand.  “Good-morning, Deacon! ...Well, well! what a melancholy old ruin this is, to be sure.  I never chanced to see the interior before.”

Deacon Whittle regarded his pastor sourly from under puckered brows.

“Some s’prised to see you, dominie,” said he.  “Thought you was generally occupied at your desk of a Friday morning.”