_Miss Gryll._ And now, Mr. Falconer, you who live in an old tower, among old books, and are deep in the legends of saints, surely you must have a ghost story to tell us. _Mr. Falconer_. Not exactly a ghost story. Miss Gryll but there is a legend which took my fancy, and which I taured into a ballad. If you permit me, I will repeat it. The permission being willingly granted, Mr. Falconer closed the series of fireside marvels by reciting THE LEGEND OF SAINT LAURA Saint Larua, in her sleep of death, Preserves beneath the tomb --'Tis willed where what is willed must be--{1} In incorruptability Her beauty and her bloom. So pure her maiden life had been, So free from earthly stain, 'Twas fixed in fate by Heaven's own Queen, That till the earth's last closing scene She should unchanged remain. 1 Vuolsi cosi cola dove si puote Ciô che si vuole, e piii non domandare. --Dante. Within a deep sarcophagus Of alabaster sheen, With sculptured lid of roses white, She slumbered in unbroken night, By mortal eyes unseen. Above her marble couch was reared A monumental shrine, Where cloistered sisters, gathering round, Made night and morn the aisle resound With choristry divine The abbess died: and in her pride Her parting mandate said, They should her final rest provide The alabaster couch beside, Where slept the sainted dead. The abbess came of princely race: The nuns might not gainsay: And sadly passed the timid band, To execute the high command They dared not disobey. The monument was opened then: It gave to general sight The alabaster couch alone: But all its lucid substance shone With preternatural tight. They laid the corpse within the shrine! They closed its doors again: But nameless terror seemed to fall, Throughout the livelong night, on all Who formed the funeral train. Lo! on the morrow morn, still closed The monument was found; But in its robes funereal drest, The corpse they had consigned to rest Lay on the stony ground. Fear and amazement seized on all: They called on Mary's aid: And in the tomb, unclosed again, With choral hymn and funeral train, The corpse again was laid. But with the incorruptible Corruption might not rest: The lonely chapel's stone-paved floor Received the ejected corpse once more, In robes funereal drest. So was it found when morning beamed: In solemn suppliant strain The nuns implored all saints in heaven, That rest might to the corpse be given, Which they entombed again. On the third night a watch was kept By many a friar and nun: Trembling, all knelt in fervent prayer, 'Till on the dreary midnight air Rolled the deep bell-toll, 'One'!