“The minstrel’s curse be on the love Of all who bear the Chilton name Long after he shall sleep in death, Who, blameless, bore their blame. A Chilton maiden ne’er shall love A man of low degree, But she shall bring on him the doom That one has brought on me. Until there meet in future years Some Chilton of _her_ name, And some proud branch of my own blood Who knows not whence he came, But bears the name that now I bear-- Douglas the True--and she Is named for my lost Edith-- Edith, so dear to me-- When these shall meet, and, meeting, wed, The minstrel’s curse has died, And Douglas and his love shall know The bliss I was denied!” Lady Edith read these singular lines over twice before she turned her inquiring gaze on old Katharine. The nurse nodded, gravely. “You see how it is, my lady. You dare not love ‘a man of low degree,’ for the curse of Douglas North, the murdered minstrel, always comes upon every such man that the ladies of Chilton have doomed with their love. They have all died, one after another, strange, unnatural deaths; and this young singer you love will die, too, if you do not in mercy to him forget your fancy for his handsome face and sweet voice.” “Nonsense!” cried Lady Edith; but she was still pale, and her voice trembled. There was a vein of superstition in her nature that she could not overcome. It had descended to her along with the blue blood that flowed in her veins. Then a gleam of hope brightened her eyes as she continued: “You forget, Katharine, that my name is Edith, and the curse says expressly, that when the lady’s name is Edith the curse is ended.” “It says no such thing,” the privileged old nurse answered flatly. “It says when her name is Edith, and he is a descendant of the Norths’, and named Douglas, the doom is ended--not before. And now I have warned you! If you keep on loving this Guy Winthrop, with his sweet voice, and his ‘low degree,’ you love him to his doom and to his death.” _PART II._ “The _curse_ is come upon me!” cried The lady of Shalott. --_Tennyson._ Lady Edith tried to banish the memory of her eventful day in the gayety and splendor of the masquerade ball she attended that night. In vain, for, strangely enough, it seemed to her excited fancy, she had not been in the rooms more than an hour before a black domino in the costume of a minstrel of the Fifteenth Century approached her and begged for the honor of a promenade with the “beauteous Mary.” Lady Edith, in the superb costume of the lovely Mary, Queen of Scots, and looking magnificently grand, bowed with queenly dignity, and placing her white-gloved hand on the minstrel’s arm, moved on with him among the throng of revelers.