the centre, commencing the worship by a hymn of praise. Their voices were harsh and broken, but the devotion of their manner sanctified the strains, and Roland felt not, as he feared he should, a disposition for mirth. But when they gradually formed into a procession, marching two and two in a regular line, all joining in the wild and dissonant notes, then warming as they continued, changing the solemn march into the liveliest dance, clapping their hands simultaneously and shouting till the cold white walls resounded with the strange hosannas; all the while, those hueless, passionless faces gleaming by him, so still and ghastly mid their shroud-like garments, his brain began to reel, and he almost imagined himself attending the orgies of the dead, of resuscitated bodies, with the motions of life, but without the living soul. Still, over the whole group there was a pervading solemnity and devotion, an apparent abandonment of the whole world--an anticipation of the loneliness and lifelessness of the tomb, that redeemed it from ridicule, and inspired emotions kindred to awe. This awe, however, soon melted away in pity at such delusion, and this sensation became at length converted into admiration for an object, at first unnoticed in the general uniformity of the scene, but which grew upon his eye, like the outline of the landscape through the morning mist. There was one young girl moving in this throng of worshippers, whose superior bearing could not long elude the stranger's scrutiny. Her age might be fourteen or fifteen, perhaps younger; it was difficult to decide through the muffling folds of a dress which levelled every distinction of form and comeliness. As she passed and repassed him, in the evolutions of their dance, he caught occasional glimpses of a face, which, though pale, betrayed the flitting colour through the transparent skin; and once or twice the soft, thoughtful gray eyes were turned towards him, with a wistful and earnest expression, as if claiming sympathy and kindness from some congenial being. Fixing his gaze upon the spot where he first beheld her, he watched her returning figure with an intensity that at last became visible to the object of it, for the pale rose of her cheek grew deeper and deeper, and her beautiful gray eyes were bent upon the floor. Roland leaned from the window near which he was seated, to see if it was actually the same world he had inhabited that morning, so strangely were his senses affected by the shrill music, growing louder and louder, the shuffling, gliding motions, increasing in velocity, and this sweet apparition so unexpectedly mingling in such an incongruous scene. The breath of summer redolent with a thousand perfumes stole over his brow--the blue sky was arching over his head; never had creation seemed more lovely or glowing; yet the worshippers within deemed they were offering an acceptable sacrifice on the altar of God, the sacrifice of those social affections, which find such beautiful