who, like me," (her voice whispered,)
"hast sacrificed the household hearth to thy country's altars,--and I
will never pray to Heaven to love thee less--my brother, O my brother!"

In all the room were then heard but the low sounds of sobs and broken
exclamations. All clustered to one spot-Leofwine and his
betrothed--Gurth and his bride--even the selfish Aldyth, ennobled by the
contagion of the sublime emotion,--all clustered round Githa the mother
of the three guardians of the fated land, and all knelt before her, by
the side of Harold. Suddenly, the widowed Queen, the virgin wife of the
last heir of Cerdic, rose, and holding on high the sacred rood over those
bended heads, said, with devout passion:

"O Lord of Hosts--We Children of Doubt and Time, trembling in the dark,
dare not take to ourselves to question thine unerring will. Sorrow and
death, as joy and life, are at the breath of a mercy divine, and a wisdom
all-seeing: and out of the hours of evil thou drawest, in mystic circle,
the eternity of Good. 'Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.'
If, O Disposer of events, our human prayers are not adverse to thy
pre-judged decrees, protect these lives, the bulwarks of our homes and
altars, sons whom the land offers as a sacrifice. May thine angel turn
aside the blade--as of old from the heart of Isaac! But if, O Ruler of
Nations, in whose sight the ages are as moments, and generations but as
sands in the sea, these lives are doomed, may the death expiate their
sins, and, shrived on the battle-field, absolve and receive the souls!"

CHAPTER IV.

By the altar of the Abbey Church of Waltham, that night, knelt Edith in
prayer for Harold.

She had taken up her abode in a small convent of nuns that adjoined the
more famous monastery of Waltham; but she had promised Hilda not to enter
on the novitiate, until the birthday of Harold had passed. She herself
had no longer faith in the omens and prophecies that had deceived her
youth and darkened her life; and, in the more congenial air of our Holy
Church, the spirit, ever so chastened, grew calm and resigned. But the
tidings of the Norman's coming, and the King's victorious return to his
capital, had reached even that still retreat; and love, which had blent
itself with religion, led her steps to that lonely altar. And suddenly,
as she there knelt, only lighted by the moon through the high casements,
she was startled by the sound of approaching feet and