Father Morris, who had joined the procession of monks, was almost as much affected as his patron. Indeed his affection for Edmund seemed the only human passion remaining in his ascetic breast. Cold even to frigidity in his exterior, Father Morris seemed to regard the scenes passing around him but as the moving figures of a magic lantern, which glittered for a moment in glowing colours, and then vanished into darkness, leaving no trace behind:--whilst he, unmoved as the wall over which the gaudy but shadowy pageant had passed, saw them alternately vanish and re-appear without the slightest emotion being excited in his mind. Under this statue-like appearance, however, Father Morris concealed passions as terrific as those which might be supposed to throb in the breast of a demon: though never did his self-command seem relaxed for a moment, but when the interests of Edmund were in question. On the present occasion, however, joy swelled in his bosom almost to suffocation, as he raised his eyes to Heaven, and, wringing his hands together, exclaimed, "Oh! it is too--too much!" There is something indescribably affecting in seeing strong emotion expressed by those who are generally calm and unimpassioned; and Sir Ambrose, by whom this burst of feeling from his confessor was quite unexpected, gazed at him with the utmost surprise, and, strange to tell, though the monk had now lived nearly twenty years under his roof, it was the first time he had seen his head completely uncovered. Father Morris's cowl had now, however, fallen off entirely, and displayed the head of a man between forty and fifty, whose fine features bore the traces of what he had endured. His noble expressive brow seemed wrinkled more by care than age, and his sable locks had evidently become "grizzled here and there," prematurely. Sir Ambrose gazed upon him intently, for the peculiar expression of his features seemed to recall some half-forgotten circumstance to his mind, dimly obscured, however, by the mist of time. The earnestness with which he consequently regarded the monk, seemed at length to recall the latter to himself. He started, and, whilst a deep crimson flushed his usually sallow countenance, he hastily resumed his cowl, and appeared again to the eyes of the spectators, the same cold, unimpassioned, abstracted being as before.