pirit
than a living woman along the ruined ambulatory. Her hair had fallen in
disorder over her face. She stayed not to adjust it, but tossed aside
the blinding locks with frantic impatience. She felt as one may feel who
tries to strain his nerves, shattered by illness, to the endurance of
some dreadful, yet necessary pain.

Sybil loved her granddame, old Barbara; but it was with a love tempered
by fear. Barbara was not a person to inspire esteem or to claim
affection. She was regarded by the wild tribe which she ruled as their
queen-elect, with some such feeling of inexplicable awe as is
entertained by the African slave for the Obeah woman. They acknowledged
her power, unhesitatingly obeyed her commands, and shrank with terror
from her anathema, which was indeed seldom pronounced; but when uttered,
was considered as doom. Her tribe she looked upon as her flock, and
stretched her maternal hand over all, ready alike to cherish or
chastise; and having already survived a generation, that which
succeeded, having from infancy imbibed a superstitious veneration for
the "cunning woman," as she was called, the sentiment could never be
wholly effaced. Winding her way, she knew not how, through roofless
halls, over disjointed fragments of fallen pillars, Sybil reached a
flight of steps. A door, studded with iron nails, stayed her progress;
it was an old, strong oaken frame, surmounted by a Gothic arch, in the
keystone of which leered one of those grotesque demoniacal faces with
which the fathers of the church delighted to adorn their shrines. Sybil
looked up--her glance encountered the fantastical visage. It recalled
the features of the sexton, and seemed to mock her--to revile her. Her
fortitude at once deserted her. Her fingers were upon the handle of the
door. She hesitated: she even drew back, with the intention of
departing, for she felt then that she dared not face Barbara. It was too
late--she had moved the handle. A deep voice from within called to her
by name. She dared not disobey that call--she entered.

The room in which Sybil found herself was the only entire apartment now
existing in the priory. It had survived the ravages of time; it had
escaped the devastation of man, whose ravages outstrip those of time.
Octagonal, lofty, yet narrow, you saw at once that it formed the
interior of a turret. It was lighted by a small oriel window, commanding
a lovely view of the scenery around, and paneled with oak, richly
wrough