which the devotion of his guide, Richard,
had left in the path, he at last, by ascending some stone steps
decorated on the side with griffins, or some such heraldic anomalies,
attained a terrace extending in front of the Place of Fairladies; an
old-fashioned gentleman's house of some consequence, with its range of
notched gable-ends and narrow windows, relieved by here and there an old
turret about the size of a pepper-box. The door was locked during the
brief absence of the mistress; a dim light glimmered through the sashed
door of the hall, which opened beneath a huge stone porch, loaded with
jessamine and other creepers. All the windows were dark as pitch.

Miss Arthuret tapped at the door. 'Sister, sister Angelica.' 'Who is
there?' was answered from within; 'is it you, sister Seraphina?'

'Yes, yes, undo the door; do you not know my voice?'

'No doubt, sister,' said Angelica, undoing bolt and bar; 'but you know
our charge, and the enemy is watchful to surprise us--INCEDIT SICUT LEO
VORANS, saith the breviary. Whom have you brought here? Oh, sister, what
have you done?'

'It is a young man,' said Seraphina, hastening to interrupt her sister's
remonstrance, 'a relation, I believe, of our worthy Father Fairford;
left at the gate by the captain of that blessed vessel the SAINTE
GENEVIEVE--almost dead--and charged with dispatches to '--

She lowered her voice as she mumbled over the last words.

'Nay, then, there is no help,' said Angelica; 'but it is unlucky.'

During this dialogue between the vestals of Fairladies, Dick Gardener
deposited his burden in a chair, where the young lady, after a moment
of hesitation, expressing a becoming reluctance to touch the hand of a
stranger, put her finger and thumb upon Fairford's wrist, and counted
his pulse.

'There is fever here, sister,' she said; 'Richard must call Ambrose, and
we must send some of the febrifuge.'

Ambrose arrived presently, a plausible and respectable-looking old
servant, bred in the family, and who had risen from rank to rank in
the Arthuret service till he was become half-physician, half-almoner,
half-butler, and entire governor; that is, when the Father Confessor,
who frequently eased him of the toils of government, chanced to be
abroad. Under the direction, and with the assistance of this venerable
personage, the unlucky Alan Fairford was conveyed to a decent apartment
at the end of a long gallery, and, to his inexpressible relief,
consigned to a