Mr. Raby broke it rather unexpectedly. “But,” said he, gravely, “if I have seen nothing, I've heard something. Whether it was supernatural, I can't say; but, at least, it was unaccountable and terrible. I have heard THE GABRIEL HOUNDS.” Mr. Coventry and Grace looked at one another, and then inquired, almost in a breath, what the Gabriel hounds were. “A strange thing in the air that is said, in these parts, to foretell calamity.” “Oh dear!” said Grace, “this is thrilling again; pray tell us.” “Well, one night I was at Hillsborough on business, and, as I walked by the old parish church, a great pack of beagles, in full cry, passed close over my head.” “Oh!” “Yes; they startled me, as I never was startled in my life before. I had never heard of the Gabriel hounds then, and I was stupefied. I think I leaned against the wall there full five minutes, before I recovered myself, and went on.” “Oh dear! But did any thing come of it?” “You shall judge for yourself. I had left a certain house about an hour and a half: there was trouble in that house, but only of a pecuniary kind. To tell the truth, I came back with some money for them, or rather, I should say, with the promise of it. I found the wife in a swoon: and, upstairs, her husband lay dead by his own hand.” “Oh, my poor godpapa!” cried Grace, flinging her arm tenderly round his neck. “Ay, my child, and the trouble did not end there. Insult followed; ingratitude; and a family feud, which is not healed yet, and never will be--till she and her brat come on their knees to me.” Mr. Raby had no sooner uttered these last words with great heat, than he was angry with himself. “Ah!” said he, “the older a man gets, the weaker. To think of my mentioning that to you young people!” And he rose and walked about the room in considerable agitation and vexation. “Curse the Gabriel hounds! It is the first time I have spoken of them since that awful night; it is the last I ever will speak of them. What they are, God, who made them, knows. Only I pray I may never hear them again, nor any friend of mine.” Next morning Jael Dence came up to the hall, and almost the first question Grace asked her was, whether she had ever heard of the Gabriel hounds. Jael looked rather puzzled. Grace described them after Mr. Raby. “Why, that will be Gabble Retchet,” said Jael. “I wouldn't talk much about the like, if I was you, miss.” But Grace persisted, and, at last, extracted from her that sounds had repeatedly been heard in the air at night, as of a pack of hounds in full cry, and that these hounds ran before trouble. “But,” said Jael, solemnly, “they are not hounds at all; they are the souls of unbaptized children, wandering in the air till the day of judgment.” This description, however probable, had the effect of making Grace disbelieve the phenomenon altogether, and she showed her incredulity by humming a little air.