sight, some quarter of a league before them. The rowers plied their utmost efforts; the courtiers gazed impatiently on the lessening space, or paced anxiously around the tower. The Prelate, fixed on the same spot, stood with his arms folded in a cross on his breast, and looked calmly and trustfully onward. So they sped forward; and the most experienced eye could not pronounce where the victory would be. At length the breeze lulled a little, and the royal galley bore onwards.

"Two golden pieces each to the rowers," cried the Earl of Leicester in exultation, "if they take us in first!"

The Archbishop said in a tone audible only to Warel, "Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield; but I come to thee in the Name of the LORD of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, Whom thou hast defied. O Sancte Martine, ora pro nobis !"

Again the breeze sprung up behind them; the sails swelled out light and full, and La Blanche Dâme, leaping forwards, outstripped her rival, and entered the narrow jaws of the harbour ere the royal galley had shipped her oars for the passage.

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CHAPTER IX.

AGNES DE TRACY and the Prioress of S. Mary's sat in the apartment usually occupied by the latter. It was not large, and might not altogether have accorded with modern notions of comfort. But it had all that the Superior of the little convent wished; and in good sooth was exactly in keeping with the place. The walls were hung with tapestry, representing various scriptural subjects: the Fall, for example; the Beasts going two and two into the Ark; the Sacrifice of Isaac; and the Sun and Moon standing still at the bidding of Joshua. The ciel. ing was of vaulted stone; the floor partly covered with mats, and partly strewed with rushes. One of the windows, with its wide splay and narrow slit, looked out into the second court, which was the burying-ground of the sisters, and which was marked by the Cross in the middle, wrought after the fashion of the times in the shape of a

circle on a somewhat pyramidal shaft, and representing our Blessed Saviour (so Catholick sculpture has ever represented Him) as stretching out His arms, and thereby seeming to invite the whole world to Himself. Around it were the thousand devices into which the cross was worked, each marking out where some sister, having departed with the sign of faith, was now resting in the sleep of peace. The other window looked out into the orchard, or hortyard, as the Prioress might have called it; where the wind was making rude sport with the red leaves which yet hung on the trees. Agnes was engaged on her tapestry; the other sat with a book of devotion.

"Even so," said the Prioress," my daughter, is the life of man as be these leaves, at the funeral whereof the wind maketh mournful yet pleasant music. But beholdest thou not how, as the branches do clash one against another, of themselves they perforce make the sign of the cross, teaching us thereby in what we be to put our trust. It is a fit day, verily, for the funeral of one like unto our departed sister Margaret, whose soul GoD pardon."

"Amen!" replied Agnes de Tracy. "I have heard wise men say, my mother, that there may be traced that holy sign in almost every thing that we behold both in nature and in art; and 1 do partly believe it."

"Surely, my daughter," answered the other," it

is so.

The ship, as it glideth by upon the sea, and

the bird, as it cleaveth the air, and the road, as it goeth winding over the moor, and cutteth his neighbour road, and the stars in their silent courses, and the long clouds at evening, all these do set out unto us the figure of the Holy Cross."

"I scarce know how, my mother," said Agnes, "to express unto you the calm and peace of mind that I have felt, since, by our Lady's favour, my abode was thrown into this house. Indeed, right happy I was with my dear father, Sir Ranulph de Broc, on whose soul GOD have mercy! yet knew I not the holiness and the peacefulness of the evercoming seasons of prayer, and the midnight hymns, and the opening and shutting of the day with the blessing of our heavenly Father, even as do the flowers with the dew of heaven. And I do exceedingly love the greyness and the repose of these old walls, where so many humble souls have been at peace with their God, and whence so many have gone home to Him."

"Thou wouldst make a happy sister, my poor child," said the Abbess, with a mournful smile.

"I fear not," said Agnes, looking down: "I have that which bindeth me far too nearly to the world. Nathless, I do look upon them that have here dedicated their love to Him that deserveth it best, as far happier than I am."

At this moment the bells of the Priory church began to chime; not to toll, for the Church then allowed no such expression of grief for the depar

ture of one of her children: and the Abbess rising, and speaking as though of the living, said, "Time is it that we do now visit Sister Margaret ;" and followed by Agnes, she proceeded to the hall, where the sisters were already assembled around the remains of their companion. The departed one, now laid in her coffin, still wearing the Benedictine dress and the fair veil, looked like one who had fallen into a sleep deeper and calmer than that of earth: in her hands was placed a cross; tapers were burning at her head and at her feet; and ever and anon the sweet voices of the sisters chanted one of the penitential psalms. The procession was soon formed. Two Benedictine priests, in copes of dark purple, went first; then came the Abbess with her silver staff; then the nuns, two and two, the bearers of the coffin being in the midst. Arrived at the church, the coffin was set down on its hearse in the nave, the tapers still burning about it. The rest, going into the choir, sang the psalms; the 116th, with its antiphon, or key-note, "I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living;" the 120th, with its antiphon, "Woe is me, that I am constrained to dwell in Mesech;" the 121st, with that verse, "The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil; yea, it is even He that shall keep thy soul;" then the 118th; and afterwards the priests began, " I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me;" "Blessed," replied the choir," are the dead which die in the Lord." "From the gates of hell," they continued; "De