adore her Creator. A short time
was permitted for mental devotion; during which Peveril could hear her
half-breathed petition for the promised blessings of peace on earth, and
good-will towards the children of men.

The prayer which ensued was in a different tone. It was poured forth by
the same person who had officiated as chaplain at the table; and was in
the tone of a Boanerges, or Son of Thunder--a denouncer of crimes--an
invoker of judgments--almost a prophet of evil and of destruction. The
testimonies and the sins of the day were not forgotten--the mysterious
murder of Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey was insisted upon--and thanks and
praise were offered, that the very night on which they were assembled,
had not seen another offering of a Protestant magistrate, to the
bloodthirsty fury of revengeful Catholics.

Never had Julian found it more difficult, during an act of devotion, to
maintain his mind in a frame befitting the posture and the occasion; and
when he heard the speaker return thanks for the downfall and devastation
of his family, he was strongly tempted to have started upon his feet,
and charged him with offering a tribute, stained with falsehood and
calumny, at the throne of truth itself. He resisted, however, an impulse
which it would have been insanity to have yielded to, and his patience
was not without its reward; for when his fair neighbour arose from her
knees, the lengthened and prolonged prayer being at last concluded, he
observed that her eyes were streaming with tears; and one glance with
which she looked at him in that moment, showed more of affectionate
interest for him in his fallen fortunes and precarious condition, than
he had been able to obtain from her when his worldly estate seemed so
much the more exalted of the two.

Cheered and fortified with the conviction that one bosom in the
company, and that in which he most eagerly longed to secure an interest,
sympathised with his distress, he felt strong to endure whatever was
to follow, and shrunk not from the stern still smile with which, one by
one, the meeting regarded him, as, gliding to their several places of
repose, they indulged themselves at parting with a look of triumph on
one whom they considered as their captive enemy.

Alice also passed by her lover, her eyes fixed on the ground, and
answered his low obeisance without raising them. The room was now empty,
but for Bridgenorth and his guest, or prisoner; for it is difficult to
say i