Father Mackworth puts the finishing touch on his great piece of embroidery.

And so we went. At Ravenshoe were assembled General Mainwaring, Lady Ascot, Mary, Gus, Elora, Archy, and nurse, William, Charles, Father Tiernay and Father Murtagh Tiernay, John Marston, and Tommy Cruse from Clovelly, a little fisherboy, cousin of Jane Evans’s — Jane Evans who was to be Mrs. Ravenshoe.

It became necessary that Jane Evans should be presented to Lady Ascot. She was only a fisherman’s daughter, but she was wonderfully beautiful, and gentle, and good. William brought her into the hall one evening, when every one was sitting round the fire; and he said, “My dear madam, this is my wife that is to be.” Nothing more.

And the dear old woman rose and kissed her, and said, ” My love, how wonderfully pretty you are. You must learn to love me, you know, and you must make aste about it, because I am a very old woman, and I sha’n’t live very long.”

So Jane sat down by Mary, and was at borne, tbougb a little nervous. And General Mainwaring came and sat beside ber, and made bimseif as agreeable as very few men beside him know bow to. And tbe fisherboy got next to William, and stared about with his great black eyes, like a deer in a flower-garden. (You caught that face capitally, Mr. Hook, if you will allow me to say so — best painter of the day!)

Jane Evans was an immense success. She had been to school six months at Exeter, and had possibly been drilled in a few little matters: such as how to ask a gentleman to hold her fan; how to sit down to the piano when asked to sing (which she couldn’t do); how to marshal her company to dinner; how to step into the car of a balloon; and so on. Things absolutely necessary to know, of course, but which had nothing to do with her success in this case; for she was so beautiful, gentle, and winning, that she might have done anything short of eating with her knife, and would have been considered nice.

Had she a slight Devonshire accent? “Well, well! Do you know, I rather like it. I consider it aqually so good with the Scotch, my dear.

I could linger and linger on about this pleasant pring at old Ravenshoe, but I must not. You have been my companion so long that I am right loth to part with you. But the end is very near.

Charles had his revenge upon the trout. The first day after he had recovered from his journey, he and William went out and did most terrible things. William would not carry a rod, but gave his to the servant, and took the landing-net. That Ravenshoe stream carries the heaviest fish in Devonshire. Charles worked up to the waterfall, and got nineteen, weighing fourteen pounds. Then they walked down to the weir above the bridge, and then Charles’ evil genius prompted him to say, “William, have you got a salmon fly in your book?” And William told him that he had, but solemnly warned him of what would happen.

Charles was reckless and foolish. He, with a twelve foot trout rod, and thirty yards of line, threw a small salmon fly under the weir above the bridge. There was a flash on the water. Charles’ poor little reel began screaming, and the next moment the line came “flick ” home across his face, and he said, “By gosh, what a fool I was,” and then he looked up to the bridge, and there was Father Mackworth looking at him.

“How d’ye do, my dear sir?” said Charles. “Glad to see you out. I have been trying to kill a salmon with trout tackle, and have done quite the other thing.”

Father Mackworth looked at him, but did not speak a word. Then he looked round, and young Murtagh Tiernay came up and led him away; and Charles got up on the road and watched the pair going home. And as he saw the tall narrow figure of Father Mackworth creeping slowly along, dragging his heels as he went, he said, “Poor old fellow, I hope he will live to forgive me.”

Father Mackworth, poor fellow, dragged his heels homeward; and when he got into his room in the priests’ tower, Murtagh Tiernay said to him, “My dear friend, you are not angry with me? I did not tell you that he was come back, I thought it would agitate you.”

And Father Mackworth said slowly, for all his old decisive utterance was gone, “The Virgin bless you, you are a good man.”

And Father Mackworth spoke truth. Both the Tiernays were good fellows, though papists.

“Let me help you off with your coat,” said Murtagh, for Mackworth was standing in deep thought.

“Thank you,” said Mackworth. “Now, while I sit here, go and fetch your brother.”

Murtagh Tiernay did as he was told. In a few inutes our good jolly old Irish friend was leaning over Mackworth’s chair.

“Ye’re not angry that we didn’t tell ye there was company?” he said.

“No, no,” said Mackworth. “Don’t speak to me, that’s a good man. Don’t confuse me. I am going. You had better send Murtagh out of the room.”

Father Murtagh disappeared.

“I am going,” said Mackworth. “Tiernay, we were not always good friends, were we?”

“We are good friends, any way now, brother,” said Tiernay.

“Ay, ay, you are a good man. I have done a wrong. I did it for the sake of the Church, partly, and partly — well. I was very fond of Cuthbert. I loved that boy, Tiernay. And I spun a web. But it has all got confused. It is on this left side, which feels so heavy. They shouldn’t make one’s brain in two halves, should they?”

“Begorra no. It’s a burnin’ shame,” said Father Tiernay, determining, like a true Irishman, to agree with every word said, and find out what was coming.

“That being the case, my dear friend,” said poor Mackworth, “give me the portfolio and ink, and we will let our dear brother Butler know, de profandis clamavi, that the time is come.”

Father Tiernay said, “That will be the proper course,” and got him pen and ink, fully assured that another fit was coming on, and that he was wandering in his mind; but still watching to see whether he would let out anything. A true Irishman.

Mackworth let out nothing. He wrote as steadily as he could, a letter of two lines, and put it in an envelope. Then he wrote another letter of about three lines, and inclosed the whole in a larger envelope, and closed it. Then he said to Father Tiernay, “Direct it to Butler, will you, my dear friend; you quite agree that I have done right?”

Father Tiernay said that he had done quite right; but wondered what the dickens it was all about. We soon found out. But we walked, and rode, and fished, and chatted, and played billiards, and got up charades with Lady Ascot for an audience; not often thinking of the poor paralytic priest in the lonely tower, and little dreaming of the mine which he was going to spring under our feet.

The rows (there is no other expression) that used to go on between Father Tiernay and Lady Ascot were as amusing as anything I ever heard. I must do Tiernay the justice to say that he was always perfectly well bred, and also, that Lady Ascot began it. Her good temper, her humour, and her shrewdness were like herself; I can ay no more. Tiernay dodged, and shuffled, and went from pillar to post, and was as witty and good-humoured as an Irishman can be; but I, as a staunch Protestant, am of opinion that Lady Ascot, though nearly ninety, had the best of it. I daresay good Father Tiernay don’t agree with me.

The younger Tiernay was always in close attendance on Mackworth. Every one got very fond of this young priest. We used to wait until Father Mackworth was reported to be in bed, and then he was sent for. And generally we used to make an excuse to go into the chapel, and Lady Ascot would come, defiant of rheumatism, and we would get him to the organ.

And then — Oh, Lord! how he would make that organ speak, and plead, and pray, till the prayer was won. And then, how he would send aggregated armies of notes, marching in vast battalions one after another, out into space, to die in confused melody; and then, how he would sound the trumpet to recal them, and get no answer but the echo of the roof Ah! well. I hope you are fond of music, reader.

But one night we sent for him, and he could not come. And later we sent again, but he did not come; and the man we had sent, being asked, looked uneasy, and said he did not know why. By this time the ladies had gone to bed. General Mainwaring, Charles, William,

John Marston, and myself, were sitting over the fire in the hall, smoking, and little Tommy Cruse was standing between William’s knees.

The candles and the fire were low. There was light outside from a clouded moon, so that one could see the gleam of the sea out of the mullioned windows. Charles was stooping down, describing the battle of the Alma on the hearthrug, and William was bending over, watching him, holding the boy between his knees, as I said. General Mainwaring was puffing his cigar, and saying, “Yes, yes; that’s right enough; ” and Marston and I were, like William, looking at Charles.

Suddenly the boy gave a loud cry, and hid his face in William’s bosom. I thought he had been taken with a fit. I looked up over General Mainwaring’s head, and I cried out, “My God! what is this?”

We were all on our legs in a moment, looking the same way. At the long low mullioned window which had been behind General Mainwaring. The clouded moonlight outside showed us the shape of it. But between us and it there stood three black figures, and as we looked at them, we drew one towards the other, for we were frightened. The general took two steps forward.

One of the figures advanced noiselessly. It was dressed in black, and its face was shrouded in a black ood. In that light, with that silent even way of approaching, it was the most awful figure I ever saw. And from under its hood came a woman’s voice, the sound of which made the blood of more than one to stand still, and then go madly on again. It said:—

“I am Ellen Ravenshoe. My sins and my repentance are known to some here. I have been to the war, in the hospitals, till my health gave way, and I came home but yesterday, as it were, and I have been summoned here. Charles, I was beautiful once. Look at this.”

And she threw her hood back, and we looked at her in the dim light. Beautiful once! Ay, but never so beautiful as now. The complexion was deadly pale, and the features were pinched, but she was more beautiful than ever. I declare I believe that if we had seen a ring of glory round her head at that moment none of us would have been surprised. Just then, her beauty, her nun’s dress, and the darkness of the hall, assisted the illusion, probably; but there was really something saint-like and romantic about her, for an instant or so, which made us all stand silent. Alas! there was no ring of glory round her head. Poor Ellen was only bearing the cross, she had not won the crown.

Charles was the first who spoke or moved; he went up to her, and kissed her, and said, “My sweet sister, I new that if I ever saw you again I should see you in these weeds. My dear love, I am so glad to see you. And oh, my sister, how much more happy to see you dressed like that — ”

(Of course he did not use exactly those words, but words to that effect, only more passionate and even less grammatical. I am not a shorthand writer. I only give you the substance of conversations in the best prose I can command.)

“Charles,” she said, “I do right to wear weeds, for I am the widow of — (Never mind what she said; that sort of thing very properly jars on Protestant ears.) I am a sister of the Society of Mercy of St. Bridget, and I have been to the East, as I told you: and more than once I must have been into the room where you lay, to borrow things, or talk with English Catholic ladies, and never guessed you were there. After Hornby had found me at Hackney, I got leave from Father Butler to join an Irish sisterhood; for our mother was Irish in speech and in heart, you remember, though not by birth. I have something to say — something very important. Father Mackworth, will you come here? Are all here intimate friends of the family? Will you ask any of them to leave the hall, Charles?”

“Not one,” said Charles. “Is one of those dark figures which have frightened us so much, Father Mackworth? My dear sir, I am so sorry. Come to the fire; and who is the other?”

“Only Murtagh Tiernay,” said a soft voice.

“Why did you stand out there these few minutes? Father Mackworth, your arm.”

William and Charles helped him in towards the fire. He looked terribly ill and ghastly. The dear old general took him from them, and sat him down in his own chair by the fire; and there he sat looking curiously around him, with the light of the wood fire and the candles strong on his face, while Ellen stood behind him, with her hood thrown back, and her white hands folded on her bosom. If you have ever seen a stranger group than we were, I should be glad to hear of it.

Poor Mackworth seemed to think that it was expected of him to speak. He looked up to General Mainwaring, and he said —

“I hope you are the b............