ning habit?

_The White Devil._

The progress of our narrative demands our presence in another apartment
of the hall--a large, lonesome chamber, situate in the eastern wing of
the house, already described as the most ancient part of the
building--the sombre appearance of which was greatly increased by the
dingy, discolored tapestry that clothed its walls; the record of the
patience and industry of a certain Dame Dorothy Rookwood, who flourished
some centuries ago, and whose skilful needle had illustrated the
slaughter of the Innocents, with a severity of _gusto_, and sanguinary
minuteness of detail, truly surprising in a lady so amiable as she was
represented to have been. Grim-visaged Herod glared from the ghostly
woof, with his shadowy legions, executing their murderous purposes,
grouped like a troop of Sabbath-dancing witches around him. Mysterious
twilight, admitted through the deep, dark, mullioned windows, revealed
the antique furniture of the room, which still boasted a sort of
mildewed splendor, more imposing, perhaps, than its original gaudy
magnificence; and showed the lofty hangings, and tall, hearse-like
canopy of a bedstead, once a couch of state, but now destined for the
repose of Lady Rookwood. The stiff crimson hangings were embroidered in
gold, with the arms and cipher of Elizabeth, from whom the apartment,
having once been occupied by that sovereign, obtained the name of the
"Queen's Room."

The sole tenant of this chamber was a female, in whose countenance, if
time and strong emotion had written strange defeatures, they had not
obliterated its striking beauty and classical grandeur of expression. It
was a face majestical and severe. Pride was stamped in all its lines;
and though each passion was, by turns, developed, it was evident that
all were subordinate to the sin by which the angels fell. The contour of
her face was formed in the purest Grecian mould, and might have been a
model for Medea; so well did the gloomy grandeur of the brow, the severe
chiselling of the lip, the rounded beauty of the throat, and the
faultless symmetry of her full form, accord with the beau ideal of
antique perfection. Shaded by smooth folds of raven hair, which still
maintained its jetty dye, her lofty forehead would have been displayed
to the greatest advantage, had it not been at this moment knit and
deformed by excess of passion, if that passion can be said to de