thingness, and ascribed all to God. She spoke
not, she wept not: even the wonted smile forsook her lips. She only felt
the immensity of the goodness of God--she only bowed before this new
manifestation of his power. The three knights, who looked up in her
face, saw she was invoking a blessing upon them, and reverently bent
their heads, as if in the feeling that the blessing was then descending.

Young girls clothed in white were noiselessly strewing with flowers the
way by which the adorable Sacrament was to pass from the chapel to the
chamber. The blessed candle, the emblem of the light of faith and of the
heavenly mansions, was lit, and the maiden, unable to kneel, received
the Sacred Body as she lay. Her eyes were closed, and, as if detached
from all earthly things, she continued to murmur, almost inaudibly,
passages from the Psalms and pious ejaculations. She raised her finger
to trace upon her lips the sign of Christ, and then fell into her agony.

Three times the bell had tolled when the last absolution was given, and
its solemn voice still sounded at regular intervals, mingling with the
sublime words that bade the faint soul go forth from the world in the
name of God the Father Almighty, who created it, in the name of Jesus
Christ, the Son of the living God, who suffered for it, in the name of
the Holy Spirit, which had been imparted to it: in the name of Angels
and Archangels, in the name of Thrones and Dominations, in the name of
Principalities and Powers, in the name of Cherubim and Seraphim, in the
name of Patriarchs and Prophets, in the name of holy Apostles and
Evangelists, in the name of holy martyrs and confessors, in the name of
holy monks and hermits, in the name of holy virgins and all the Saints
of God, that its rest that day might be in peace, and its habitation in
holy Sion!

There was no struggle, no contortion, to mark the moment of
dissolution. The face only grew more serene and less death-like, as the
soul passed from its frail tenement.

The bells no longer swung slowly and solemnly, but poured forth a
festive sound. And well might they peal more merrily then, than at
birth, or marriage, or earthly conquest. Tears were falling fast around
the bed; yet only the body wept--the soul was exulting.

On the morning of the third day after the Lady Margaret's death, a
funeral procession could be seen slowly approaching, within sight of the
ruins of Stramen Castle and the blackened Church of the Nat