«The sins I have confessed, my father," answered Edward," but I have not yet told of a strange appearance, which, acting on my mind, hath, I think, aided to determine my resolution."

“Tell it, then, now," returned the Sub-Prior; "it is thy duty to leave me uninstructed in nought, so that thereby I may understand the temptation that besets thee."

"I tell it with unwillingness," said Edward; "for although, God wot, I speak but the mere truth, yet even while my tongue speaks it as truth, my own ears receive it as fable."

"Yet say the whole," said Father Eustace ; "neither fear rebuke from me, seeing I may know reasons for receiving as true that which others might regard as fabulous."

"Know, then, father," replied Edward, "that betwixt hope and despair-and, Heavens! what a hope!—the hope to find the corpse mangled and crushed hastily in amongst the bloody clay which the foot of the scornful victor had trod down upon my good, my gentle, my courageous brother,—I sped to the glen called Corri-nan-shian; but, as your reverence has been already informed, neither the grave, which my unhallowed wishes had in spite of my better self longed to see, nor any appearance of the earth having been opened, was visible in the solitary spot where Martin had, at morning yesterday, seen the fatal hillock. You know our dalesmen, father. The place hath an evil name, and this deception of the sight inclined them to leave it. My companions became affrighted, and hasten

ed down the glen as men caught in trespass. My hopes were too much blighted, my mind too much agitated, to fear either the living or the dead. I descended the glen more slowly than they, often looking back, and not ill pleased with the poltroonery of my companions, which left me to my own perplexed and moody humour, and induced them to hasten into the broader dale. They were already out of sight, and lost amongst the windings of the glen, when, looking back, I saw a female form standing beside the fountain"

"How, my fair son ?" said the Sub-Prior, "beware you jest not with your present situation !"

"I jest not, father," answered the youth; "it may be I shall never jest again-surely not for many a day. I saw, I say, the form of a female clad in white, such-such as the Spirit which haunts the house of Avenel is supposed to be. Believe me, my father, for, by Heaven and earth, I say nought but what I saw with these eyes!"

"I believe thee, my son," said the monk; "proceed in thy strange story."

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"The apparition," said Edward Glendinning, sung, and thus ran her lay; for, strange as it seem to you, her words abide by my remembrance as if they had been sung to me from infancy upward:

'Thou who seek'st my fountain lone,

With thoughts and hopes thou darest not own ;

Whose heart within leap'd wildly glad

When most his brow seem'd dark and sad;

Hie thee back, thou find'st not here

Corpse or coffin, grave or bier;

The Dead Alive is gone and fled-
Go thou, and join the Living Dead!

'The Living Dead, whose sober brow

Oft shrouds such thoughts as thou hast now,
Whose hearts within are seldom cured
Of passions by their vows abjured;
Where, under sad and solemn show,
Vain hopes are nursed, wild wishes glow.
Seek the convent's vaulted room,

Prayer and vigil be thy doom;

Doff the green, and don the gray,
To the cloister hence away!'"

"'Tis a wild lay," said the Sub-Prior, "and chanted, I fear me, with no good end.

But we have

power to turn the machinations of Satan to his shame. Edward, thou shalt go with me as thou desirest; thou shalt prove the life for which I have long thought thee best fitted-thou shalt aid, my son, this trembling hand of mine to sustain the Holy Ark, which bold unhallowed men press rashly forward to touch and to profane.-Wilt thou not first see thy mother?"

"I will see no one," said Edward, hastily; "I will risk nothing that may shake the purpose of my heart. From Saint Mary's they shall learn my destination-all of them shall learn it. My mother Mary Avenel-my restored and happy brother they shall all know that Edward lives no longer to the world to be a clog on their happiness. Mary shall no longer need to constrain her looks and expressions to coldness because I am nigh. She shall no longer"

"My son," said the Sub-Prior, interrupting him,

"it is not by looking back on the vanities and vexations of this world, that we fit ourselves for the discharge of duties which are not of it. Go, get our horses ready, and, as we descend the glen together, I will teach thee the truths through which the fathers and wise men of old had that precious alchemy, which can convert suffering into happiness."

CHAPTER XVI.

Now, on my faith, this gear is all entangled,
Like to the yarn-clew of the drowsy knitter,
Dragg'd by the frolic kitten through the cabin,
While the good dame sits nodding o'er the fire!
Masters, attend; 'twill crave some skill to clear it.
Old Play.

EDWARD, with the speed of one who doubts the steadiness of his own resolution, hastened to prepare the horses for their departure, and at the same time thanked and dismissed the neighbours who had come to his assistance, and who were not a little surprised both at the suddenness of his proposed departure, and at the turn affairs had taken.

"Here's cold hospitality," quoth Dan of the Howlet-hirst to his comrades; "I trow the Glendinnings may die and come alive right oft, ere I put foot in stirrup again for the matter."

Martin soothed them by placing food and liquor before them. They ate sullenly, however, and departed in bad humour.

The joyful news that Halbert Glendinning lived, was quickly communicated through the sorrowing family. The mother wept and thanked Heaven alternately; until her habits of domestic economy awakening as her feelings became calmer, she observed, "It would be an unco task to mend the