rn in bed for a matter of weeks, or at the least, a brooding
sense of oppression, accompanied by hateful nightmares. Gradually
there formulated itself a suspicion--which grew into a conviction--that
the alterations in the Cathedral had something to say in the matter.
The widow of a former old verger, a pensioner of the Chapter of
Southminster, was visited by dreams, which she retailed to her
friends, of a shape that slipped out of the little door of the south
transept as the dark fell in, and flitted--taking a fresh direction
every night--about the close, disappearing for a while in house after
house, and finally emerging again when the night sky was paling. She
could see nothing of it, she said, but that it was a moving form: only
she had an impression that when it returned to the church, as it
seemed to do in the end of the dream, it turned its head: and then,
she could not tell why, but she thought it had red eyes. Worby
remembered hearing the old lady tell this dream at a tea-party in the
house of the chapter clerk. Its recurrence might, perhaps, he said, be
taken as a symptom of approaching illness; at any rate before the end
of September the old lady was in her grave.

The interest excited by the restoration of this great church was not
confined to its own county. One day that summer an F.S.A., of some
celebrity, visited the place. His business was to write an account of
the discoveries that had been made, for the Society of Antiquaries,
and his wife, who accompanied him, was to make a series of
illustrative drawings for his report. In the morning she employed
herself in making a general sketch of the choir; in the afternoon she
devoted herself to details. She first drew the newly exposed
altar-tomb, and when that was finished, she called her husband's
attention to a beautiful piece of diaper-ornament on the screen just
behind it, which had, like the tomb itself, been completely concealed
by the pulpit. Of course, he said, an illustration of that must be
made; so she seated herself on the tomb and began a careful drawing
which occupied her till dusk.

Her husband had by this time finished his work of measuring and
description, and they agreed that it was time to be getting back to
their hotel. "You may as well brush my skirt, Frank," said the lady,
"it must have got covered with dust, I'm sure." He obeyed dutifully;
but, after a moment, he said, "I don't know whether you value this
dress particularly, my dear, b