"My strict duty! Oh, Mr. Winter, I abjure strictness, it is a thing of mathematical precision, gone, vanished with the old dispensation; which, providing rules for all and every thing, left no room for those exquisite shades and tints without which, life, as well as pictures, would have neither truth nor beauty. I never like to think how much or how little I ought to do; there is one maxim on this point, that supplies to me the absence of every other. 'Freely ye have received, freely give,' Why should I pain another, to fulfil to the letter, an unimportant duty? But, I have settled that point." "Well, well, you are right in intention at all events, and now I must say good morning, what are you going to do?" "Why, I have finished my preparations; and as grandpapa is going with you about the luggage, I intend hearing the evening service in the Cathedral; vespers, (I like the name, popish though it be) for the last time. Ah, _Maestro mio_, to-morrow." "Don't talk of it, but I'll tell Mrs. Winter she may expect you in an hour. _Au revoir._" Kate strolled slowly through the churchyard, and mounted the steps; stood for some minutes gazing at the well-known scene from the city wall, thinking, "how and when shall I see it again! What awaits me in the new world into which I am about to plunge!" Then turning to the right, she followed the rather tortuous way, formed by the time worn ramparts, until she reached the narrow alley which led to the cathedral. The entrance to the cloisters at this spot, was a low vaulted passage, which communicated, in ancient times, with the servants' offices, and formed an angle with a lofty chapel, now used as an ante-room; and here Kate again paused, as if to take the scene into her memory. To the Chapter house, opposite the end opening on the cloisters, was a beautiful window, showing through its lace-like and still perfect tracery, the soft, green grass which clothed the quadrangle formed by the cloisters, and a thorn tree grew close against its mullions, and even thrust its branches, so delicately green, with the first fresh and unspeakable tints of spring, through their many openings; contrasting its fair youth, with the solemn grey and massive stones around it. A bright gleam of sunshine, which fell slanting, it up one half the chapel, through which Kate advanced, leaving the other in shadow. The unbroken stillness, the air of deep repose, which pervaded the old pile, gave something of its own calm to her feelings, which had been a little ruffled by the thousand anticipations her argument with Winter had called up. The hour of evening prayer was not yet arrived, and she stood for a while gazing at the exquisite effects of light and shade, till the perfect silence woke up her fancy, and she smiled to think, that it would scarce surprise her, to see a plumed and helmetted shadow fall on the stream of sunshine, which bathed the pavement with a flood of gold, and even were the shadow followed by a