“I think I have heard, when on the Continent,” said Mrs. Merton, “that St. Nicholas was also the patron of young girls; and that in convents, when the novices had behaved well, it was pretended that he had stuffed their stockings with sugar plums during the night.” “Yes,” returned the old gentleman, “and nearly the same fiction was resorted to by parents; who, when they wished to make presents to their children, used to tell them that, if they left their windows open at night, and had been quite good, St. Nicholas would come through the open window and leave them something pretty or nice.” “How very strange!” cried Agnes; “I should have thought the parents would like to give the presents themselves, and see how happy they made their little children. Besides, was it not very wicked to tell falsehoods?” “I consider it so,” said Mrs. Merton; “as I think we should never do what is bad even when we think it will produce good. We are all naturally so prone to do evil, that it is necessary to keep the boundary line between what is right and what is wrong as distinct as possible. This principle was not, however, so clearly understood formerly, as it is now; and thus children of the present day have great advantages over those of the preceding generation.” While Mrs. Merton was speaking, Agnes was looking at the chapel so earnestly that her mother asked her what she thought of it. “I was only thinking,” said Agnes, blushing, “how very odd it was that a saint, who was supposed to be so fond of giving pretty things to children should have such a very ugly chapel. There is not a single ornament in it, from one end to the other.” Mrs. Merton smiled, and said she supposed that this chapel had been stripped of its ornaments at the time of the Reformation. “The old chapel of Saint Nicholas was stripped in the time of Elizabeth,” said Mr. Bevan. “When that Queen repaired, and new fortified Carisbrook Castle, to enable it to resist the invasion of the Spanish Armada, she stripped this chapel of its ornaments, to remove all traces of the festival of the boy bishop, which she had previously suppressed in every part of England. But that does not apply to the present chapel, which was built on the site of the old one, in its present unornamented state, in the time of George II.” They now left the chapel, and proceeded to the outworks, where they found a number of persons assembled in the open space, adjoining the castle, to celebrate an archery meeting. The gay dresses of the ladies, contrasting with the green around, and with the grey walls of the old castle, had a most brilliant and animating effect. Mrs. Merton and Agnes, accompanied by Mr. Bevan, walked to the open space in the outworks of the castle, where the meeting was to be held.