d don my mantle?"

"Umph, sweetheart, well proposed," said the armourer; but the monk
interfered, raising at the same time the finger of interdiction.

"The chapel of holy St. Madox is no tiring room for jugglers and
strollers to shift their trappings in. I will presently show thee a
vestiary more suited to thy condition."

The poor young woman hung down her humbled head, and turned from
the chapel door which she had approached with the deep sense of self
abasement. Her little spaniel seemed to gather from his mistress's looks
and manner that they were unauthorised intruders on the holy ground
which they trode, and hung his ears, and swept the pavement with his
tail, as he trotted slowly and close to Louise's heels.

The monk moved on without a pause. They descended a broad flight of
steps, and proceeded through a labyrinth of subterranean passages, dimly
lighted. As they passed a low arched door, the monk turned and said
to Louise, with the same stern voice as before: "There, daughter of
folly--there is a robing room, where many before you have deposited
their vestments."

Obeying the least signal with ready and timorous acquiescence, she
pushed the door open, but instantly recoiled with terror. It was a
charnel house, half filled with dry skulls and bones.

"I fear to change my dress there, and alone. But, if you, father,
command it, be it as you will."

"Why, thou child of vanity, the remains on which thou lookest are but
the earthly attire of those who, in their day, led or followed in the
pursuit of worldly pleasure. And such shalt thou be, for all thy mincing
and ambling, thy piping and thy harping--thou, and all such ministers of
frivolous and worldly pleasure, must become like these poor bones, whom
thy idle nicety fears and loathes to look upon."

"Say not with idle nicety, reverend father," answered the glee maiden,
"for, Heaven knows, I covet the repose of these poor bleached relics;
and if, by stretching my body upon them, I could, without sin, bring my
state to theirs, I would choose that charnel heap for my place of rest
beyond the fairest and softest couch in Scotland."

"Be patient, and come on," said the monk, in a milder tone, "the reaper
must not leave the harvest work till sunset gives the signal that the
day's toil is over."

They walked forward. Brother Cyprian, at the end of a long gallery,
opened the door of a small apartment, or perhaps a chapel, for it was
decorated with a crucifix,