ir respective errands,
we will roam for a while amid the sheltered walks of Cecil Place.

It was situated on the slope of the hill, leading to the old monastery
of Minster. Although nothing now exists except the church, a few broken
walls, and a modernised house, formed out of one of the principal
entrances to what was once an extensive range of monastic buildings; yet
at the time of which we treat, the ruins of the nunnery, founded by
Sexburga, the widow of Ercombert, King of Kent, extended down the rising
ground, presenting many picturesque points of view from the small but
highly-cultivated pleasure grounds of Cecil Place. Nothing could be more
beautiful than the prospect from a rude terrace which had been the
favourite walk of Lady Cecil. The small luxuriant hills, folding one
over the other, and terminating in the most exquisite valleys and bosky
glades the imagination can conceive--the rich mixture of pasture and
meadow land--the Downs, stretching to King's Ferry, whitened by
thousands of sheep, whose bleatings and whose bells made the isle
musical--while, beyond, the narrow Swale, widening into the open sea,
shone like a silver girdle in the rays of the glorious sun--were
objects, indeed, delicious to gaze upon.

Although, during the Protectorate, some pains had been taken to render
Sheerness, then a very inconsiderable village, a place of strength and
safety, and the ancient castle of Queenborough had been pulled down by
the Parliamentarians, as deficient in strength and utility, no one
visiting only the southern and western parts of the island could for a
moment imagine that the interior contained spots of such positive and
cultivated beauty.

It was yet early, when Constantia Cecil, accompanied by a female friend,
entered her favourite flower-garden by a private door, and strolled
towards a small Gothic temple overshadowed by wide-spreading oaks,
which, sheltered by the surrounding hills, had numbered more than a
century of unscathed and undiminished beauty, and had as yet escaped the
rude pruning of the woodman's axe. The morning habit of the noble
Constance fitted tightly to the throat, where it was terminated by a
full ruff of starched muslin, and the waist was encircled by a wide band
of black crape, from which the drapery descended in massive folds to her
feet. She pressed the soft green turf with a more measured step than was
her wont, as if the body shared the mind's sad heaviness. Her head was
uncov